Reader wants people to consider both political sides

I think I understand why some people are so passionate about gun ownership. It's part of their family tradition and sense of personhood. Take away their guns and you take away something that feels very much like their lifeblood.

It's not hard to understand, then, that people who feel that way about guns might vote, as they did recently in Colorado, to recall state legislators who voted in support of background checks and a limit on gun magazines.

What I don't understand is how recalling legislators we disagree with is going to produce the kind of debate needed to craft good social policy. Instead of recalling (silencing) legislators we disagree with, why not concede that they play an important role in our democratic process, the role of forcing us to listen to a different point of view, to rethink the stand we've taken on social problems, most of which have no simple solution and none of which can be solved responsibly by silencing our opponents.

Ron Moen,

Quincy