LETTER: Start with banning assault weapons

March 28, 2023

To the Community:

While state legislatures across the country create laws to prohibit drag queen story hours, and the teaching of critical race theory, and “wokeness,” and the banning of books, our children continue to die in school shootings. 

Recently, there have been calls for “parents’ rights” in determining school curriculum. Some parents don’t want their children to feel uncomfortable learning about the true history of our country. They don’t want children to be exposed to ideas in books that reflect our society as a whole. It seems that parents have a right to say what their children will be taught in school but they don’t have a right to have their children come home from school alive. Go ahead and ban books, but heaven forbid we ban assault weapons!

What are some proposed solutions to school gun violence? Giving teachers guns, making safe rooms in each classroom where you can hide with your students, and putting in security measures that will make schools seem more like prison yards than school yards. When you sign up to be a police officer or a firefighter you know that your life is on the line when you go to work. It appears we need to add being a teacher to that list. Is it any wonder that there are teacher shortages in our country? 

In everyday life in America, our lives are on the line just by being a student or a grocery store clerk or a pastor or a church goer or a concert goer or a movie patron or shopper of any kind. This doesn’t even take into account domestic violence and suicides. Gun violence is the number one cause of death of children in the United States. I don’t see children dying from drag queen story hours or reading books or learning the true history of our country. 

Thoughts and prayers will not end gun violence. Banning assault weapons will not end gun violence either, but it will be a good start.

MK Monley 

Waterbury