To the editor:

Last week, a day before the latest hideous shooting tragedy, a pitched battle raged in Topeka: Moms, dads, teachers, professors, students, alumni, homemakers and many others lined up against the NRA and its latest “put guns everywhere” concealed carry reciprocity bill. House Bill 2042 would effectively lower the age at which a person could carry a concealed weapon to 18, with only the most minimal of licensing requirements.

The law would allow 70-plus percent of KU students to legally bring firearms to campus and would place ever more guns in our largest lecture halls, freshman chemistry labs and fraternity parties.

Great points were made against the bill like: There’s no Second Amendment argument for putting guns on campus because our Founding Fathers kept guns off the campus they ran. If you really believe in reciprocity, how about a marijuana law reciprocity with Colorado? And the military bars 18- to 20-year-olds from carrying private firearms on post for good reason; perhaps we should too.

If you don’t like guns in classrooms and every corner of our society, call Sen. Bud Estes and the rest of the Federal and State Affairs

Committee. Then join one of the groups actively resisting the NRA’s money-fueled gun violence lawmaking machine: Grandparents, join Moms Demand Action; KU Alumni and students, support Fail Campus Carry; members of the faith community, help Kansas Interfaith Action; and faculty members, become active in the American Association of University Professors. Grumbling to ourselves won’t solve this one. We must stand together.