Letter: Guns Shatter Lives

To the Editor:

Eight months ago, I spoke out about the shooting at 345 Park Avenue in New York — a building where I once worked, at Scali, McCabe, Sloves, an advertising agency that helped define the “creative revolution” era. It felt unthinkable then.

This past weekend, we’re watching the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and shots fired in Bloomington, Indiana during Indiana University’s Little 500 celebration.

A week ago we heard of the killing of eight children, seven of which came from a single family in Shreveport, Louisiana.

Different places. Same story. Again. And again.

We cannot keep settling grievances with guns. We can’t keep saying, “thoughts and prayers.”

We have to teach — early, clearly, and without exception — that disagreement is never resolved with a trigger.

And that responsibility doesn’t stop with families or schools.

The firearm industry — its most visible brands, and organizations like the NSSF and NRA — has unmatched reach.

They speak to millions of owners and first-time buyers.

They can say, plainly and without ambiguity:

Because silence, especially now, is not neutral. It enables.

As violence rises — even inside our own homes where a family member annihilates his or her whole family — doing nothing is no longer defensible.

If you make a product, you share responsibility for how it’s understood.

That responsibility is long overdue.

—  Harry Falber

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