Hannah Kypta’s op-ed “As a high school senior, I’m tired of living in fear of a school shooter” in Sunday’s Tribune is courageous and patriotic. I am fortunate never to have had my family and friends be touched by gun violence. But, like Hannah, every time there is an incident, I fear that my 3-year-old or 7-year-old great nieces or my daughter who is a grade school librarian could be a victim. Hannah correctly points out that the Founding Fathers intended the Second Amendment to apply to single-shot muskets and pistols used by citizen militia members. Gun lovers and politicians have twisted its intention to include assault-style rifles capable of murdering dozens of unarmed citizens. I agree 100% that we should put the lives of our citizens first and ban such assault-style weapons. They have no place in a civilized society. — Ellen Edwards, Oak Park Turn ‘prayers’ into legislation The astonishing insight and personal experience of Hannah Kypta, a teenager who is able to communicate so effectively, have given me much hope for the future of our country. I have grandchildren who are in Hannah’s demographic, and after each school shooting, I thank God it was not their schools. A copy of Hannah’s opinion piece should be read by every member of Congress so that “prayers and thoughts” can be turned into legislation. These teen children who are experiencing intruder drills are either of voting age or will be in a few years. However, what truly is at issue here is less the vote and more what is morally the right thing to do. Hannah may say she is no scholar, but her opinion piece is the best I’ve read on this issue. — Carol White, Elmhurst A sad time for nation’s children The op-ed by the high school senior is written very well and truly points out her fears of children and staff members being shot in school. It is a sad, sad time that this young woman and others are growing up in. — Debbie Goddard, Plainfield It’s the people, not the guns Hannah Kypta blames the dreadful reality of school shootings on the easy availability of assault-style rifles. And that, she says, is due to an outdated interpretation of the Second Amendment that allows almost anybody to own such fearsome weapons. I sympathize with her feelings, but this is far too simplistic. In the so-called Wild West — from about 1865 to 1900 — many men were armed with revolvers, repeating rifles and sometimes shotguns. A man — or teenage boy — could kill a lot of people with a six-shot revolver, especially if he had several of them and took his victims by surprise. But as far as I have ever heard, there were no school shootings in the Wild West. What made the difference? I don’t know. But there is something about our society now that breeds the insanity of school shooters. That’s what we must identify and cure. It’s not the guns; it’s the people. — George W. Price, Chicago Amendment’s historical context In the Sept. 16 Tribune (“Firearm law faces tough test”), U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was quoted as saying in a written opinion, “It is difficult to see how the Seventh Circuit could have concluded that the most widely owned semiautomatic rifles are not ‘Arms’ protected by the Second Amendment.” Well, the Second Amendment was referring to militias armed with muzzle-loading muskets needed to support the military. So I agree that we should not ban muskets; everything else can be banned. — Chris Kurby, Bartlett The mayor is in over his head Mayor Brandon Johnson continues to be in way over his head. Surveys show his approval rating is in the 20s. Johnson’s choice for a top aide, Kennedy Bartley, was hired without proper vetting. Or was that the case? Before joining Johnson’s team, she referred to police officers as “f—ing pigs” and made a supportive comment after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks. While Johnson says her beliefs do not echo his, he once promoted the “defund the police” movement, and he hired her. That makes one think. Our budget is a mess, which is not fully Johnson’s fault. Under the previous mayor, aldermen voted to change the name of one of the most iconic drives in the country. The cost to us the taxpayers for changing the signage was reportedly $2.5 million. Where is the accountability? It is time to clean house. — B. Dempsey, Chicago ShotSpotter argument is weak The editorial about ShotSpotter (“Chicago must keep ShotSpotter. The data leaves no doubt,” Sept. 15) does not give the number of people “saved” by ShotSpotter. It extrapolates to potentially 85 lives saved. What was the real number of the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab study? Five lives saved? Ten lives? Thirty? The lower the number, the less accurate the extrapolation is. It seems like a low enough number in which you could actually see if each person would have lived or died with or without ShotSpotter. That would have been more informative. The editorial simply says the reader is a “fool” if he or she doesn’t believe its dodgy extrapolation. It doesn’t explain the other side of the argument. Is the argument against it so good that the Tribune Editorial Board is afraid to even address it? Are the vast majority of ShotSpotter alerts false alarms? Are neighborhoods with ShotSpotter being affected in the middle of the night by sirens for no reason while the other neighborhoods get a good night’s rest? I don’t know. The editorial just gives pretty vague statistics and says I’m a fool if I don’t agree that the extrapolation means we need to save ShotSpotter. — John Stephens, Chicago Let’s not kowtow to polluters The editorial “In US Steel mess, Gary should not be the victim of Pennsylvania politics” (Sept. 8) neglects to address key points that would, in fact, perpetuate Gary and Northwest Indiana as victims. Japan’s Nippon Steel has an abysmal environmental reputation globally for its poor decarbonization strategy. Nippon’s promise to invest $300 million in extending the life of a blast furnace at Gary Works damns global climate goals and local health, where pollution has disproportionate impacts, documented by Industrious Labs‘ Equity Mapper. Secondly, the editorial ignores an open secret: The ultimate enticement is complicity via inaction by elected officials (with few exclusions) and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM). This past year, IDEM issued drafts of industry permits that offer little to no oversight, enforcement or penalty and ignore public comments. The fox guards the henhouse: Industry largely self-reports while violations accumulate without consequence, as evidenced by a recent permit hearing on a toxic waste facility. This perpetuates the region as an easy mark for profit-hungry polluters near and far. Recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have sledgehammered environmental laws — overturning the Chevron doctrine, unraveling 50 years of water safeguarding efforts through via the the Sackett case and blocking Environmental Protection Agency enforcement of the “good neighbor” air pollution rule. Fallout from these decisions could be catastrophic here and globally. The region’s environmental justice communities are trying to rise from sacrifice zone status, where largely low-income Black and Brown residents have been dumped on with little regard to regulations or environmental law for more than a century. Coal and steel workers built this country. However, making jobs the point at the expense of all else is no longer valid. Economic solutions to environmental issues exist and can create family-sustaining union jobs, and yet they remain unimplemented by profit-driven industry that is laughing all the way to the bank as our children clutch their asthma inhalers. It’s time to reclaim a quality of place where industry promotes the interrelationship of community health, worker safety, union jobs where contractual agreements are upheld, and the environment. The editorial credits too much to Pennsylvania politics. The solution to uplifting communities here is directly related to mitigating the climate crisis. — Susan Thomas, director of legislation and policy/press, Just Transition Northwest Indiana Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email [email protected].