When I was in high school, there were no school shootings. There no mass shootings at all in the United States. If any had happened, it would have been big news, on TV and in all the papers.

Once we turned 14, we schoolboys took the NRA hunter safety training course and were able to buy hunting licenses. We purchased repeating rifles. We joined the school rifle club and practiced marksmanship. A few of the adults in our lives had licensed handguns, but one needed to have a really good reason to be issued a handgun permit. I did not know anyone, except the police, who actually carried a handgun. Of course, no one could have a functioning automatic weapon.

Society had other shortcomings, to be sure, but we were in no danger of being shot in a public space.

What has changed? Gun violence has now become — I hate to say it! — commonplace. The thoughtful among us have petitioned our government to regulate the manufacture, sale, and possession of certain weapons and features of weapons. The NRA and Gun Owners Action League have resisted all attempts at reasonable regulation. They recoil in horror! “You are infringing our rights! You are trying to take our guns away from us! Anyway, laws do not work! Criminals do not obey them!”

Why is this our problem?

It is hard to believe that the “gun folks” like the increase in gun violence, and would not want to stop it, but the only solution they propose is to arm everyone. That makes no sense. If I went to the Big Y or Walmart and saw people walking around armed, that would frighten me away. I would leave and do my shopping online.

Peter Jones

Florence