Guns are our golden calf | The Salt Lake Tribune

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Last Friday night, I lay awake, unable to sleep, wondering about the emotions sweeping through the parents of the children murdered earlier that day in Connecticut. Anguish, bewilderment, helplessness, sorrow, anger?

A thousand miles away, I mostly felt anger. Anger that these kind of horrific events are occurring with increasing frequency and deadliness.

Anger that after the initial outpouring of sorrow, the nation looks away and forgets. Anger that after the recent killings in Arizona, Colorado, Wisconsin and now Connecticut, that no changes have been made in the laws that control the availability of guns.

I am tired that reasonable restrictions in gun ownership and sales are hamstrung by the National Rifle Association and their political cronies, hiding behind the rubric of the Second Amendment. Guns have become our culture's golden calf, glorified in the media and video games and sanctified in the halls of Congress.

It is time to repeal the Second Amendment and evolve into a society that seeks to protect the most vulnerable of our citizens instead of kowtowing to the gun lobby. It is time for a change.

John H. Weis

Salt Lake City