Dear Editor:

Fred Nehring (Letters, June 25) feigns umbrage over the recent events in South Carolina and uses that to call for more useless gun laws. He claims that this type of violence is a growing problem when in fact the violent crime rate in America has been steadily declining for over a decade. While any murder is heinous, the number of people killed in tragedies like this remains more or less constant and not rising as he would have you believe.

If Mr. Nehring truly wished to do something about deaths in this country, he can help address the 3,561 babies who are murdered every day in America by abortion. There is a violent crime statistic for everyone, over 58 million since 1973. All those lives lost in the name of women’s reproductive rights. Those numbers Mr. Nehring takes such offense to pale in comparison, don’t they.

Sarah Sample

Boothbay Harbor