Dear Editor,

Never Again MSD is an American student organization advocating for tighter regulations to prevent gun violence. It was formed in the aftermath of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Fla., in which 17 people were fatally shot by an individual with an AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle.
In her March 30 column, Judi Tabler criticized these students by making false statements about them as a premise for her change-the-question arguments.
We often hear individuals such as Tabler say we should not ban high-capacity magazines and assault weapons. But we never hear anyone say they know with all reasonable certainty that if the 1994 ban had not expired, when the shooter entered Stonemen Douglas High School, he still would have killed 17 people. If anyone knows as much, please say so and make your case.
The man who shot Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords and 18 others in Tucson was tackled while reloading his gun, having spent 33 rounds. Giffords’ husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, who has reviewed the criminal records, said a 9-year-old girl was shot sometime after bullet No. 12 and added, “If (the shooter) didn’t have access to a high-capacity magazine, there would be less people dead.”
Investigators at Sandy Hook Elementary School found 10 spent or partially spent 30-round capacity magazines and 154 spent .223 casings. They estimated these rounds were fired in less than five minutes. Twenty children and six adults were killed. Eleven children escaped when the shooter stopped to reload.
The Stoneman Douglas and Tucson shooters legally purchased their guns. The Sandy Hook shooter’s guns were legally registered in his mothers name. Existing law guarantees that these mass murderers will forever have access to as many assault weapons as they want.
Tabler falsely states that Never Again MSD has called for changing the Constitution and banning all guns. She then offers ethnic massacres in the Ottoman Empire, Communist Russia, Nazi Germany and the Idi Amin Uganda dictatorship as somehow being the reason to oppose the aims of Never Again MSD.
Notably, Tabler states she draws the line against Never Again MSD because they openly oppose the NRA.
Kansas House Bill 2773 proposes that any gun safety program in public grade schools has to be the NRAs program or any evidence-based program, whatever that means. An amendment to simply remove the NRA reference was opposed by the NRA.
The NRA wants to imbue their logo, brand and messaging into the minds of our children and have it directed by state law. There are no crowds of Kansans across the state clamoring for this NRA messaging vehicle. Local school boards are not calling for the state to please take away local control of curriculum. This is the most powerful lobbying machine on the planet making a test of how deep their political ownership of our legislature is.
Please contact our legislators and oppose this provision of House Bill 2773. Never Again MSD has a message worth heeding.

John Sturn
Ellinwood