Opinion

Great exploitations: Obama’s Newtown props

The Issue: Whether President Obama should have parents of Newtown victims at gun-control talks.

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Jacob Sullum’s “Abusing Dead Children” (PostOpinion, April 10) made an excellent point about how the president is using the parents of children killed in Newtown as props for his gun-control agenda.

President Obama is pushing gun-control legislation through Congress by using generalities like “assault weapons” and “common-sense laws” in the same way he pushed through ObamaCare.

Lots of talking points, but no specifics.

A common hunting rifle can become an assault weapon simply by changing the wooden stock to an adjustable synthetic one.

If Obama were sincere about saving lives, he would be pushing for a national stop-and-frisk program like New York’s, which is effective in saving lives and getting weapons off the streets.Tom Lienhard

Westfield, NJ

I am so angry with those who are trying to guilt Congress into tearing up the Constitution because of Sandy Hook.

Making our country less free does not honor anyone’s memory, and using dead children as props is disgusting.

Their parents are too drained to understand what they are doing. But the far-left types who are pushing this anti-American scam are just despicable. Patrick Grant

Brooklyn

Constitutional rights aside, it is abhorrent for the president and vice president to use the families of the victims of tragedies.

It is the lowest form of emotional exploitation and manipulation.

Those people are still mourning and always will be.

They are trying to help their president for an important cause for the safety of their country, but they are too emotional to see that they are being used.

These people are not props. They are flesh and bone, heart and soul, and their painful mourning should be respected.

Let them heal, Mr. President and Mr. Vice President.

Talk to us directly about these issues instead of hiding behind the vulnerable parents of dead children.

Paige “Duffy” Lewis

Charleston, SC