Jerry Ritter’s letter (“Concealed Carry,” 6/2) refers to Eugene 4J School Board’s proposed policy, prohibiting individuals licensed to carry concealed firearms from bringing those firearms onto district property, as a “knee jerk reaction.” He himself does not offer any remedy to the gun violence that has become a normal feature of life in these United States.

In fact, any rule implemented to control firearms must be considered a success in itself, for two reasons. First, by flying in the face of noisy and even violence-threatening opposition, it demonstrates that such defiance of the mob is possible. Expanding what is achievable, it is thus an example to other law-making bodies. Second, like a snowball rolling downhill, it can assist others into the life-choosing movement to bring rational control to the proliferation of these weapons.

Mocking efforts at controlling guns in the wake of recent horrific events is even worse than the usual platitudes. Instead of mockery and platitudes, we need the only viable methods to prevent those events, methods collectively termed “gun control.” It worked in Australia, whose frontier heritage somewhat resembles ours, and where they instituted both bans and buy-backs. It can work here, and every effort in that direction, whether symbolic or far reaching, should be appreciated, not deprecated.

Larry Koenigsberg

Eugene