To the editor:

It was either incredibly disrespectful, or ignorant at best, to publish last weeks editorial, "My Turn." (The writer's) idea on how to take justice into his own hands would do far more harm than good. To insinuate that any of the victims of such a tragedy like the one at NIU could have prevented their fate is ludicrous. And to imply that a room full of armed civilians would deter a suicidal murderer from undertaking such an act is equally laughable. If anything, this might entice the next sick minded person to go out in a Wild West style gunfight, further endangering the good-natured students surrounding them.

Gun advocates like Mr. Webb have clung to an obsolete Amendment for too long, saying that because it was made by our "sacred" forefathers it is untouchable.

These men were just as imperfect as any man of our time, and there was no way that they could have foreseen what our country would turn into today. During Revolutionary War times, armed civilian militias protected the colonies and it was imperative they be armed to overthrow the invading British. Today, it is not a foreign invader that is on the receiving end of a bullet, but a fellow American, and one rarely with such a lofty goal like independence as the reason for it.

Mr. Webb's world seems to be a place where gun-crazed criminals run around preying upon the lives of the innocent, though this is more likely a fantasy created by one too many viewings of Scarface or American Gangster. The honest, everyday American, gun-owning or not, does not live in the constant state of fear that such madmen wish to create. So don't go and Google the names of the killers that Mr. Webb was so happy to print once again, because you're only giving those lunatics exactly what they wanted. Instead, rally together and try to heal, using these as lessons to why the world would be a far better place without guns in it. Because I for one wouldn't feel any safer in a lecture hall full of armed men and women, no matter how much safety training they've had.