To the editor:

I, too, would like to express my concern over Carmen Cerra’s cartoon in the March 2 issue of the Daily. My concern, though, is that there is someone out there who can’t see the importance of it.

This cartoon was an effective portrait of realistic happenings in American society, and to say that it was insensitive and offensive is ludicrous.

What is insensitive and offensive is the thought that one can just toss this horrific occurrence into the same pile of tragedies as any other homicide involving America’s youth.

I am left, as many people undoubtedly are, searching for answers.

With this recent trend of child violence and homicides, politicians are among those looking for someone/something to blame. Here is what is to blame: GUNS.

The idea that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” has lost all validity. In the case of 6-year-old Kayla Rolland’s murder, “people” was a 6-year-old still trapped in the innocence of youth, somehow able to get his hands on a deadly weapon.

I can not see how a political society bent on preaching so emphatically on Christian morals and values can stand idly by, all the while backing a 200-year-old document that says citizens can carry firearms.

People change, and society changes along with them. In turn, the law must adapt to the society that it protects. Nothing in this world should be absolute but the sanctity of human life.

The problem is here. Whether one acknowledges it or not is another question we all must answer. I, for one, see it, acknowledge it, and would like something done about it. We must learn to prioritize our problems.

Instead of our first priority being how to spend this multi-billion dollar surplus to better the economic prosperity of a number of people, let us focus on the lives of children being taken away from us on what seems to be a weekly basis. And why? Because our government says all have a right to own a gun.

How young must the victims get, how many children must be put away, how many times must we become emotional and angry each time we turn on the news, how much more shame must I feel for our society before we get guns out of the hands of people who don’t need them?

Prioritize our problems. Stop promoting racism, sexism and intolerance under the banner of conservative Christian values.

If there is an all-powerful, loving God out there somewhere, would he/she cry more for a gay or interracial marriage or for the death and destruction of two 6-year-olds.

One child is gone. The other will never get that chance to live life like the real America wanted him to, why the real America fought for him: free and able to pursue his happiness.

And that, my friends, is a shame and an injustice of life. I, for one, have a 5-year-old sister who is just getting started in this America.

The thought that there is a slight chance that somewhere along the line she can be taken away from me because of a “right” scares me.

Let us not be so close-minded and stubborn to keep this precious “right,” because there is no law, no amendment, no bill and no political view more precious than a human life, and that is reality. I challenge anyone to state otherwise.

So, Carmen, know that there is one reader out there who appreciates and respects what you have to say and will continue to.

For the rest, these tragedies will not cease if we ignore them and pass the blame. Guns don’t belong in the hands of children, parent’s hands belong in the hands of children.

Tim Paluch

Sophomore

Journalism and mass

communication