Echoes of Orlando, From Coast to Coast

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/18/opinion/echoes-of-orlando-from-coast-to-coast.html

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To the Editor:

Re “Confronting Our Own Extremist,” by Nicholas Kristof (column, June 16):

It didn’t take an assault rifle to devastate our family. “Just” a handgun and one hollow-point bullet that fatally tore into my father during a robbery attempt as he walked his dog in his supposedly “safe” San Francisco neighborhood in 1976, a few days before Thanksgiving.

This Thanksgiving, with an empty place at the table as usual, will mark 40 years since our tragedy, and innocents like those in Orlando continue to be mowed down, year after year after year.

Why? Because our gutless representatives and senators let us down year after year after year, as they cower before the gun lobby, begging for money, and hiding behind the Second Amendment.

Shame on them and shame on us for voting such cowards into office — year after year after year.

ANN GOLDEN MIZEL

Mill Valley, Calif.

The writer worked as a volunteer at Handgun Control, now the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

To the Editor:

Re “The Threat to Gay Americans” (editorial, June 15):

In America’s paper of record, I’m astonished to see an editorial condemning entire constituencies (Republicans and conservatives) for the atmosphere surrounding the atrocity in Orlando.

Some Republicans and conservatives espouse positions, in a free society, that engender pain and discomfort, and we should discuss those policy positions. But to implicitly blame men and women of good will who may not support the entire L.G.B.T. agenda for the actions of a depraved terrorist contributes to the partisan rancor afflicting the nation.

MIKE RABON

St. Paul

To the Editor:

“For Gays Across America, a Massacre Punctuates Fitful Gains” (front page, June 13) reported that F.B.I. statistics show that 18.6 percent of the “single-bias hate crimes” committed in 2015 were against L.G.B.T. people. But that number tells only part of the story.

We analyzed 14 years of F.B.I. data and found that, given their proportion of the population, L.G.B.T. people are victimized by violent hate crimes far more than any other minority group. They are more than twice as likely to be attacked as black people; more than four times as likely as Muslims; and nearly 14 times as likely as Latinos.

Hate crimes against all groups are a far more serious problem in America than even the F.B.I.’s annual statistics indicate. A 2013 Department of Justice study found that there are about 260,000 of all types of hate crimes committed each year — 25 to 40 times more than the numbers reported by the F.B.I. For this reason, the F.B.I. figures and the comparisons we’ve made should be considered suggestive, not definitive.

RICHARD COHEN

President

Southern Poverty Law Center

Montgomery, Ala.

To the Editor:

Regarding “Hillary Clinton Mocks Donald Trump’s National Security Ideas” (nytimes.com, June 16):

Hillary Clinton, in discussing the recent terrorist attack, mocked Donald Trump’s call for keeping dangerous persons from entering the country when she quipped, “I don’t know how one builds a wall to keep the internet out,” followed by laughter in the audience.

You can indeed build a “wall” to block certain websites that spew jihadist calls for violence and that inspire domestic terrorists such as the one who committed the slaughter in Orlando. There are a number of ways to do this, as France, Britain and other countries are doing. True, there are First Amendment concerns that must be considered, but foreign-based terrorists and groups do not enjoy protection under our First Amendment to spew their calls for violence.

PAUL KAMENAR

Chevy Chase, Md.