I am outraged that your collective editorial view is nothing more than attempt to pacify the majority of the American public with a view that taking baby steps is the way to address the gun issue and maybe get action from the Congress.

Gun violence is rampant and will continue to escalate without recognizing and tacking the elephant in the room: guns. I’m proud of the president’s definition of the problem – large and small – that must be addressed before we can bring the totality of this issue to the forefront of society, not by baby steps but all encompassing.

The Eugene Robinson column that ran just below your lame attempt to trivialize and minimize the gun-related horror represents my absolute view. State the issue as a whole, not in little baby steps, and force our do-nothing Congress to deal with it.

Everyone is running away from Todd Akin’s comment (that rape rarely leads to pregnancy), but it does contain a kernel of truth.

No one seems to recall that zoologist Desmond Morris made a similar point in his book, “The Naked Ape.” He thought that the evolution of intense emotional human pair bonding fostered modes of physical intimacy that enhanced the probability of fertilization, such as the couple lying together after copulation instead of the woman walking or running away.

Although it may not be germane to the right to life v. freedom of choice argument, Akin’s comment did not arise solely from benighted ignorance as Robinson and everyone else believes.

It is quite obvious that Robinson is not cared for through Medicare services. He is very blithe that President Obama’s removal of $700 billion from Medicare will not affect seniors because its purpose only is to slow the growth of payments to Medicare service providers. He states no impact is felt by seniors themselves.

Who does he think will provide the care for the seniors? Service providers are only being paid a pittance of what their services actually cost. If lowered even still, many will no longer be able to afford to care for Medicare patients.

I already know of one senior whose doctor, although caring for her for years, told her she must find another doctor because he can no longer afford it.

Robinson states seniors’ benefits and costs will remain the same. Seniors already are seeing their costs rising. When this amount of money is taken away, it is seniors who will be paying the difference.

Where will the doctors come from? We are already short of physicians. Not many will be interested in pursuing a career in medicine.

When Robinson receives the same care that we seniors do, then he can preach to us. In the meantime, he should stop letting his biases get in the way of real reporting.

The letter writer is tired of reading (and I paraphrase here) poorly researched, illogical, deceptive and unnecessarily provocative letters to the editor. I share his irritation.

Imagine how annoyed I was Friday morning when I turned to the editorial page and found it dominated by those bigoted, mean-spirited ideologues, known in the world of editorial journalism as Michael Gerson and Charles Krauthammer. Had I not seen the piece by my old favorite, Gene Robinson, on the same page, I also might have written a critical letter to The News Tribune.

But, after some reflection, I realized opinion is just that – opinion – and it doesn’t have to be factual. It is for the reader to separate the wheat from the chaff.

I do note that his columns almost never praise Obama’s words and acts. A failed economic policy does make such praise more difficult. This summer’s jobs report has been disappointing to date, and the unemployment rate will certainly creep up by the end of July.

What can be used to rouse up the party base this year? Fear, and fear in large doses. I anticipate that Robinson’s shrillness level will rise again as the economy sinks.

For anyone who’s been living under a rock: In the private sector, labor unions negotiate with business owners. Concessions made by the owners will benefit the union workers, and vice-versa. The public sector, however, is a whole different animal.

Public sector unions donate huge sums, almost exclusively to Democrats, for their election bids. The union then negotiates with representatives – of the same people that they helped elect. During negotiations, these people aren’t “conceding” anything; no one is giving up anything and everyone benefits.

The union workers negotiate prize contracts, and the politicians and their people are ensured another round of big donations from the same people they just negotiated with.

The only people who suffer are private sector taxpayers who are basically the victims of a theft and money-laundering scheme.

First of all, my prayers go out to the families and victims of the horrific tragedy that took place in Tucson.

Is Robinson aware that there are more than 20,000 state and federal gun laws currently? Which one failed to stop this tragedy?

On the same day as Robinson’s column, The News Tribune listed the manufacturer, make, model number of magazines and size of cartridge used to commit this terrible crime. And it reported that law enforcement arrested 606 drunk drivers between Nov. 25 and Jan 2 in Pierce County alone and 3,577 statewide in the same time period.

What I don’t see is a background check to purchase the vehicle or the alcohol, how many gallons of gas the vehicle holds and the blinding speed that it can wipe out an entire family.

When a drunk driver kills, we often learn that they have been arrested before for drunk driving only to be let go and given another chance. Are these victims of a drunk driver any less of a tragedy?

Robinson is of the view that just because a firearm looks or functions in a certain way that it must be bad and that a sporting firearm can’t be used to kill people.

My point is: Make people responsible for their actions, not the implement they used.

Where was Robinson’s outrage at President Obama as he vacationed while the huge oil spill was occurring in the Gulf of Mexico?

Not a word about that from Robinson despite the loss of life and thousands of people out of work, loss of businesses and tremendous loss to the economy. Where was Obama? Busy vacationing way up north, in Martha’s Vineyard off a much different coast.

But as Christie has become a very outspoken governor by cutting expenses and trying to balance a budget run amok by years of Democrats’ governance, he has become a target for liberals and Democrats to critique and criticize him at every opportunity.

Robinson shows once again his different standards for conservatives and liberals.

Columnists are paid to express their opinions, while reporters are paid to be impartial and report only the news. So there is not really a parallel between Juan Williams losing his job at NPR and Robinson. However, I think there is still a huge debate about whether or not Williams should have lost his job over his ill-advised comments on Bill O’Reilly’s program.

Williams appeared on O’Reilly’s program as a guest, not in his role as an NPR commentator. In these sorts of situations, an opinion may not be totally out of bounds. I think Williams’ firing left NPR with a black eye.

Robinson wrote: “It’s not racist to criticize President Obama, it’s not racist to have conservative views . . . Bush was vilified by critics while he was in office, but not with the suggestion that somehow the government had been seized or usurped.”

Meanwhile, moral philosophers like Glenn Beck and Rand Paul tell us to “restore honor in America,” that we must “turn our face back to the values and principles that made us great,” and “to take back our government.”

Robinson responds explicitly to what is cravenly implied by those kinds of statements: that America has been conquered by an outsider, and a big part of that otherness is the president’s skin color. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; it’s just another strike against this elitist closet Muslim who wasn’t even born here.

That doesn’t make Robinson a racist any more than criticizing President Bush makes him a socialist or a Nazi, or some other brand of traitor. Robinson argues that where the loyal opposition does not forthrightly confront Obama’s work, its hypocritical moral outrage attacks his identity instead.

Maybe something similar happened when Juan Williams said people “in Muslim garb” at airports make him nervous. Williams immediately acknowledged his statement mischaracterized Muslims because it was based on appearances, but he let his discomfort cloud his judgment as an objective journalist.

Perhaps persons less self-aware than Williams face the same challenge.