Letters

The lobbying arm of the powerful gun group, the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action has a website. Check it out. It has a hand in any and all gun laws, including international arms treaties. The NRA is funded, influential, effective and in control. We made it happen.

Gun advocates, who vow to block any and all legislation that limits arms, support and fund the NRA. Of course they do. The NRA creates laws for the unencumbered possession and use of weapons.

So, what about the rest of the country, who want to be safe but don’t want to go about their business armed to the teeth?

Well, we have handed power to the NRA as well, by doing nothing. As a result, we have daily shootings and routine mass killings in schools and public places.

Finally, the public has awakened, and realized that something has to be done to stop the tide of gun-related violence. In the face of the well-oiled machine that is the NRA, we are assembling, organizing and working hard to make a grassroots defense of our communities.

Lawmakers, pay attention. The NRA needs a counter balance — and we are it .

KARYN SCHMITT

Santa Fe

Not checking for knives is absurd

In a recent interview about his decision to allow certain knives into the cabins of airplanes flying from U.S. airports, John Pistole, head of the Transportation Security Administration, said that his screeners must concentrate their efforts on the much greater threat of non-metallic explosives carried on by terrorists.

There is intelligence about terrorists continuing their interest and attempts to blow up an aircraft, whether passenger or cargo planes, as we’ve seen in three plots since Christmas. There’s no intelligence about the use of knives by a group to hijack a plane. Intelligence told us that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that Osama bin Laden remained in a cave in Tora Bora. When will we learn that “intelligence” has nothing to do with intelligence?

Mr. Pistole further stated that since flight deck doors have been additionally reinforced, it is unlikely that anyone could force his way through one. What he fails to address is the safety of everyone outside the flight deck — cabin crew and passengers.

A two-inch knife can kill. It can sever a carotid artery or jugular vein. A small group can threaten to kill people in the cabin in order to gain access to controls. Will pilots remain behind their barricade and allow the deaths of one or more of their charges rather than open their door?

Mr. Pistole wants screeners to ignore hundreds of lethal weapons in order to look for a two-ounce bottle of shampoo.

ADELE ZIMMERMANN

Embudo