NANCY ROSS, Richland

All of those children who died last week in another mass shooting had a conversation that our politicians and the NRA does not want to have -- putting a ban on assault rifles/automatic weapons. The sad thing is the conversation was very one-sided, the shooter was the only one allowed to respond! These children were on the front line of a battle that should not have to be waged.

We call ourselves civilized because we do not train and equip our children to go to war; instead we dress them in jeans and T-shirts give them pen and paper as their "weapons" and send them out to defend the rights of people to own a gun without any reasonable restrictions or laws.

How many more people have to die before we recognize that we need take action? Do we live in the greatest country on earth because we are too stupid to learn from our past or do we live in the greatest country on earth because we place the highest value on our children and we want to do everything we can to protect them? I guess it depends on how we define "greatest."