DEAR EDITOR:

The Second Amendment explains why people in the United States have guaranteed access to firearms, but it doesn’t explain why so many Americans are obsessed with guns or why we, as a nation, do not take logical action when a madman murders our children.

When we know that assault-style weapons are the choice of mass-murderers, why don’t we restrict or ban their sales (as we once had done)? Why can 18-year-olds in many states — notoriously now in Texas — buy an AR-15, but not a beer? Why can anyone buy a high-capacity magazine that has no legitimate use outside law enforcement or the military but allows a single shooter the ability to kill a dozen or more children without having to reload?

The answer to all of those questions and many more that can be raised about the refusal of Congress to respond appropriately to horrors such as Sandy Hook and Uvalde is that we have become a country of minority rule. A system of representative government that was designed by the founders to avoid abuse of the minority by the majority has become tyranny by the minority over the majority.

A cabal of Republican senators from primarily low-population states respond to their most ardent primary voters by blocking gun control, hamstringing social programs, encouraging voter suppression and treating women as chattel and breeding stock. A Supreme Court now controlled by activist justices groomed by the Federalist Society and appointed by Republican presidents who did not receive a majority vote from the American people have inflicted their minority standards (too often based on their religious beliefs) on the majority of Americans. This court also has gutted New York’s historic attempts to control the proliferation of firearms within its borders — without seeing the hypocrisy of defending

states’ rights only when such a defense fits its preconceived notions.

And I won’t even get started on the tyranny of the filibuster — which not only doesn’t appear in the Constitution, but was implicitly rejected by the founders when super majorities were being discussed. Outside of impeachment, amending the Constitution or overruling a presidential veto, there’s no historical justification for requiring more than a simple majority to pass legislation.

It’s time for voters — including those in Ohio who are having their voices reduced by GOP gerrymanders in Columbus — to fight the powerful forces that have attempted to marginalize them. Or prepare for a future of minority rule — including the possible re-election by the minority of a populist president with delusions of grandeur and an unhealthy fascination with authoritarianism.

DENNIS MANGAN

Howland