LETTER: People should have to look at ‘children ripped apart’ by guns

To Ozaukee Press:

     When the Washington Post published his opinion piece, Jeh Johnson, former secretary of homeland security in the Obama administration, knew his message was a difficult one. To stop the slaughter of children due to gun violence, he wrote,

“It’s time to show the real horror of mass shootings.” 

It is something he has struggled with since the tragedy at Sandy Hook 10 years ago. “We need a game changer. Why must innocent school children, for the rest of their lives, carry the vivid memories of the executions of their teachers and classmates, while federal and state lawmakers, and the adult constituents who elect them, are spared?”

     On June 7, actor Matthew McConaughey and his wife Camilla traveled to Uvalde, Tex., to meet with parents of the dead children to listen, to comfort. He was born and raised in Uvalde, he said. He’s a gun owner. “Responsible gun owners are fed up with how the Second Amendment has been highjacked and abused by deranged individuals,” he said. He showed a pair of green high-top Converse shoes with a red heart the young girl had painted on the toe of one shoe. “It was the only way she could be identified.”

One observer said: “No makeup, no special lighting, no reading from a screen writer’s script. Emotion on full display. Anger. Rage. Raw.”

It has been wildly reported that DNA swabs were needed to identify dead children. A Texas pediatrician testified before a House oversight committee and said he wasn’t prepared for what he saw at his hospital. “Bodies of children pulverized, decapitated, flesh ripped apart by bullets.” Republican Sen. John Cornym of Texas serves on a bipartisan committee examining gun laws. A reporter asked what he supported. “Not anything to limit guns,” he said. “Texans don’t want limits on guns because they value the Second Amendment to keep and bear firearms.”

What was that again, Mr. McConaughey? “Responsible gun owners are fed up with how the second amendment has been high-jacked and abused.”

Carole Smaglik

Port Washington