Your Say: How to curb gun violence?

• People kill people. It doesn't matter what tool they use to do it.
• Guns are too easily accessible in the USA.
• Please focus on the victims and don't glamorize the killer.

Letters to the editor and comments from Facebook:

The recent shootings at an elementary school in Connecticut and an Oregon shopping mall are tragic examples of gun violence in our country. The killings are senseless and heart-wrenching, especially around the holiday season.

Guns are too easily accessible in this country, and until we do more to address gun violence, crimes like this will continue to happen. Instead of the U.S. worrying about North Korea launching missiles, we need to worry about the crazed people who own guns.

Tyler Stocks; Greenville, N.C.

One step the federal government could take to make our children safer: Provide school districts with funding to hire police officers in schools. I'm sure that many parents would be reassured if their district had a full-time police officer protecting their children all year.

Paul Feiner; Greenburgh, N.Y.

While we all mourn the deaths of 26 people, including 20 children, slain in Newton, Conn., at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, it is ironic that even under more stringent gun laws, the shooter would still have had access to the weapons he used; they belonged to his mother.

What is the solution? I wish that I knew, but the constant occurrence of violence on TV shows and in movies certainly should share some of the blame.

Nelson Marans; Silver Spring, Md.

I implore people in the news media to stop referring to the killers in the school or workplace tragedies, including of course the one at the Connecticut elementary school, as shooters or gunmen. Refer to them as cowards because in all probability, they place shooters and gunmen in high regard. They also often do the cowardly thing by taking their own lives.

John Mueller; O'Fallon, Mo.

FAMILIAR DEBATE

People kill people. It doesn't matter what tool they use to do it. This is a cultural problem that has been seeping into America for the last 20 or so years.

I don't know whether it's the violence in video games, TV or movies, but our kids are being desensitized and do not value life as we once did. Firearms are just tools.

Ron Erke

There will always be deranged people in society. But add in violent Hollywood movies and easy access to guns, and this is what you get.

Adam Kim

How does one explain this affinity, if you can call it that, with guns that America has? Will this senseless massacre of innocent children be enough to foster a rethink of the love of the gun?

Aaron Phiri

Gun control is not the issue. The real problem is in identifying the people who have issues that lead to violent acts.

Jeffrey McKnight

IMPROVE MENTAL HEALTH

The fact is that the government has not been able to keep us safe, or to get us jobs or buy us houses. Security is our responsibility, too.

What is needed now is for people to join forces with law enforcement and build plans to make sure sensitive areas are safe.

Why can't teachers carry guns to defend their children? Why don't we train children, staff and teachers in situational awareness? We shouldn't go into paranoia mode; it is just the way things are.

Freddy Kasprzykowski

Tighten restrictions on guns. Make mental health care more available and more private so those needing help get it and aren't embarrassed.

You can't protect schools like airports. How would you pay for it?

Eric Montgomery

Time to take a stand on mental health issues.

While I believe there are issues with our gun laws, this is most likely an example of how our health care system failed.

Todd Sperl