KYLE THOMAS, Richland

I will not ask you to sign a petition or politicize the national tragedy of the Connecticut massacre. There are too many doing that on Facebook and other venues. How do you petition evil? You don't.

As for gun control, I've spent too many years (as a civilian contractor from 2006 to 2011) in Afghanistan and Iraq to have someone take away my Second Amendment right to bear arms. I've personally seen too many dictators overseas who keep their people captive. Our Second Amendment rights make sure we don't have dictators. The moment you take that from a people is the moment they become sheep.

There's a reason the right to bear arms is the Second Amendment -- almost the first but not quite. You don't have a First Amendment without the Second Amendment.

The real question in this tragedy is what do we do with the severely mentally ill? Now that we have free medical care, does that mean we can get some real help for the mentally ill?