When I was a child, we kids played a game called "good guys and bad guys," where we divided up roles between the "good guys" and the "bad guys." We used our hands to mimic pistols, and had a pretend shoot-out where everyone ended up "dead." It was just a game.

Six days after the terrible school massacre in Newtown, Conn., Wayne LaPierre, spokesman for the National Rifle Association, called for armed guards in every school across America, saying: "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."

Do LaPierre and the NRA think our country's epidemic of gun violence is just a game? If not, why do they trivialize it by using such childish language?

After Virginia Tech; Trolley Square; Tucson, Ariz.; Aurora, Colo.; and now Newtown, it is time to end the NRA's dominance of this issue. It is time for all Americans to have a serious adult conversation on how to stop this horrendous violence.

Thomas Huckin

Salt Lake City