Kayla Rolland

Re “6-Year-Old Mich. Girl Is Killed by Classmate,” March 1:

First-grader Kayla Rolland: Just another person guns didn’t kill. Which excuse this time, gun lovers? If the liberals had only let her have a handgun, she would have been able to defend herself? Or, if there weren’t guns, the little boy would have planted an antipersonnel mine in the hopscotch court instead? And God forbid we impinge on the boy’s rights by putting childproof locks on gun triggers.

ROBERT WATSON

Los Angeles

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Say it isn’t so. Don’t tell me that a 6-year-old took a gun into his first-grade classroom and shot a fellow student. Tears are falling everywhere, and outrage must follow. How did a 6-year-old get his hands on a loaded gun?

Between now and Mothers Day, May 14, when a million moms march across America (here in L.A. at the West L.A. Federal Building and downtown at Olvera Street) to voice their outrage at the gun violence that has permeated our communities, we must all let our representatives know that we support sensible gun laws. Tired of hearing gun control activists plead for better gun laws? Too bad. I’m tired of, no, sickened by, reading about the killing and maiming in this gun-happy country.

ANN REISS LANE, Chair

Women Against Gun Violence

Los Angeles

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I ache for Kayla’s family, for her friends, for her community. And it is a tragedy that cannot be imagined if you have not gone through it. But please tell me what piece of gun control legislation would have prevented this particular horrible crime? Registration? Nope. This handgun was stolen. Tougher sentences for younger offenders? This young man lived in an environment where he believed this was a sensible solution to his problem. The concept of jail is probably not comprehensible to a 6-year-old anyway. Tougher laws for parental responsibility? His dad is already in jail.

This is the textbook example of just how useless gun legislation will be in preventing gun violence. People who are willing to break one law will break another.

DAVID CHRISMAN

Westlake Village

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Should a society that allows itself to be awash in handguns and allows itself to be constantly barraged by TV images of raging grown-ups attacking each other be surprised? Children can’t kill if they don’t have access to weapons. Children learn by example. The media provide powerful role models, especially in the absence of responsible parenting. This is not rocket science. We are doing this to ourselves.

GEOFFREY HOLLAND

North Hollywood

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A quick review of Michigan’s gun laws reveals the following: no safe storage law; no centralized registration allowing identification of the legal owner of a handgun; and very weak regulation of private sales. In these types of cases, it is virtually impossible to identify all of the adult hands that that gun passed through before it was fired by this youngster.

We all understand that guns are not the root cause of violence, but quit insulting our intelligence. The lack of regulations that allows handguns to be so easily available to our youth must be addressed.

CHARLES L. BLEK JR.

MARY LEIGH BLEK

Western Regional Directors

Bell Campaign, Laguna Hills