I have been listening to the gun control debate since I was a child, when the first mass campus shooter, Charles Whitman, gunned down 45 people, killing 14, from the Tower at the University of Texas-Austin in 1966.

I have been listening since the National Rifle Association voiced support for gun control the next year, after Black Panthers carried shotguns to the California State Capitol.

I have been listening since 2004, the year of the expiration of a 10-year federal ban on assault weapons, a law that had been supported by Ronald Reagan. Now, I hear Sen. Ted Cruz screaming that the gun control debate is “ridiculous theater.”

Please. Has anyone considered that I have a right to walk down the street or the shopping aisle or go to church without having to worry that I may get shot, at random, for no reason at all except that the shooter was having “a really bad day“?

Bob Sessums
North Yarmouth

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