Featured Letter: Six months after Newtown, still no progress

To the editor:

It’s been six months since 20 first-graders and six teachers were shot to death in Newtown, Conn. While there’s nothing we can do to guarantee a tragedy like this will not happen again, Congress decided to do nothing. In a few moments 26 died and our Congress decides to do nothing?

According to a tally of gun deaths from Slate, the number of people killed since the Dec. 14 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary is now 4,499. The number of U.S. armed forces killed during the Iraq war was 4,409, according to the Defense Department.

Those who support the political idea that anyone and everyone should have unlimited access to as much firepower as they want have had their way. There’s something that can be done and the great majority of us know it. Let’s pass laws that will save the lives of schoolkids and countless others.

In another part of the country, it’s been 24 days since 10 children died in their school in Moore, Okla., from a tornado. After the horror, Gov. Mary Fallin of Oklahoma was asked, “Shouldn’t schools have storm shelters?” The governor refused to say it was time to get these school shelters built. The most she would say was, “We will have a discussion.”

Gov. Fallin is serving the political idea that government requirements to prevent the deaths of schoolchildren are wrong. Everyone knows that school storm shelters save lives and it’s the job of government to do it.

Let’s pass the laws that will save our kids.

Mort Cogen, Cutchogue

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