Why are we so willing to listen to kids now?

In the aftermath of every well-publicized shooting, those who would happily erase the Second Amendment from the Bill of Rights can be counted on to train their own guns on the National Rifle Association for no other reason than that the group offers the opposition a specific target, when it is the NRA that seeks to defend a constitutional right and promotes gun-safety among its four or five million members.

When it comes to gun violence, liberals react just like Pavlov's dogs, who became so accustomed to associating dinner with a buzzer that they eventually began to salivate at the sound even when their dinners weren't forthcoming.

Thus, because rifles were used at the mass-killings in Las Vegas and Parkland, the liberals began trying to ban anything that even resembled a rifle. They did this even though the latest statistics showed that six times as many homicides in this country were committed with knives than with rifles, nearly twice as many with blunt instruments. In fact, whereas 624 homicides were attributed in a recent year to lethal hands and feet, a mere 252 were committed with rifles.

Following the massacre in Parkland, Florida, a group of students who didn't lose their lives are now waging a well-financed campaign against gun ownership. They are certainly entitled to their own opinions, but most adults wouldn't ask adolescents to guide them, even in the realm of movies, music and body piercings.

Why is it when it comes to all the ramifications of gun legislation, that we're supposed to sit up and pay heed to the emotional reactions of teenagers to their own school shooting?

Nancy J. Thorner

Lake Bluff