To the Editor:

Re “Gunman Attacks Oregon College; 10 Reported Dead” (front page, Oct. 2):

President Obama’s heartfelt address to the nation was not enough. That he expressed sadness, anger and frustration was not enough. The repetitive pattern that follows all mass shootings is a travesty.

What seems terribly disturbing is that people may feel abandoned by a government that is expected to protect them but instead does nothing to reduce gun violence. It is indeed a national tragedy.

HAROLD LANGUS

Staatsburg, N.Y.

To the Editor:

As a college professor, I woke up in a cold sweat at 2 a.m., hours after our most recent mass school shooting at Umpqua Community College, imagining a young man with a big gun and a bad attitude standing at the door to my classroom. I asked myself what I would do: Flash a prearranged signal to Eric, an Army veteran who always sits in the front row, to try to take out the shooter, and hope that the class survives our attempt at heroics? Freeze in fear as the scene plays out in a hail of bullets? Get down on my knees and pray for mercy?

Tell me again that we live in a civilized country, even as such scenes have become numbingly familiar. Tell me that guns don’t kill people, people kill people. The truth is that people with guns kill people. Tell me I may someday be released from this fear.