To the Editor:

Letter-writer Dave Waldrop (SMN, May 25 edition) asked: “What is the cost of mass murder?”  The next day, in another local newspaper, the same writer asked: “Why ignore a part of the Second Amendment?”

Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides.

— Margaret Thatcher, former prime minister of the United Kingdom

“Let me put a face on this for you.”

So uttered Natalie Henry Howell in a gut-wrenching presentation to Haywood County Commissioners and a roomful of Second Amendment Sanctuary supporters on Tuesday night, Jan. 21. 

The opening act of what promises to be a protracted melodrama played out in the Historic Haywood County Courthouse last week before a large group of citizens representing a microcosm of modern-day America and modern-day American ideals.

The debate over whether or not Haywood County should declare itself a “Second Amendment sanctuary” entered a new phase Tuesday night after hundreds packed the Historic Haywood Courthouse and dozens addressed commissioners, with most speakers expressing a single resounding opinion: yes, it should.

On Monday, Jan. 20, as many people were off work to honor the memory of the late Martin Luther King Jr., thousands of gun rights activists rallied at the Virginia Capitol to protest pending gun-control legislation passed in that state’s General Assembly. 

The vigorous debate over the necessity of “Second Amendment sanctuary” resolutions has finally begun to trickle into North Carolina, and elected officials are increasingly being asked to weigh in on the controversial topic. 

One day after the 22nd school shooting of 2018 took place in Texas, a previously planned Second Amendment rally at the Historic Haywood County Courthouse drew citizens and elected officials who explained that the problem was really more a societal issue, than a security issue.