A worker hangs National Rifle Assn. banners outside America's Center in preparation for the groups 141st annual meeting, which opened April 13. Huy Mach / McClatchy-Tribune / April 5, 2012 The off-target NRA Re "NRA is restless despite clout," April 13 Why is the National Rifle Assn. afraid of President Obama? The gun-rights group can't name one time when Obama has said a word about gun control after any of the massacres that have taken place since he's been in office. He hasn't said a word about it even after the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. The NRA is about stoking fear and looking for an enemy. I wish Obama and the Democrats would say more about gun control, but they remain silent. The most Democrats said in recent years was after the Gabrielle Giffords shooting. The NRA can't exist if it doesn't keep people scared of their own shadows. Les Hartzman Re "Romney courts the NRA," April 14 I found reading about Mitt Romney doing the obligatory kowtowing to the NRA demoralizing. In the same paper there were stories of the USC shooting deaths, the five Tulsa shootings, the shooting death of a New Hampshire police chief while serving a warrant and the shooting deaths of a locksmith and deputy sheriff conducting an eviction. When will we learn? Carl Beckman Villa Park No comparison Re "Compare Israel to Iran?," Postscript, April 14 The answer to the question is simple: No. It is outrageous to compare Israel - a country reborn on the ashes of the Holocaust with the laudable intention of returning Jews to their ancient homeland, where they could live free from pogroms and genocide - to Iran, a country that has consistently threatened to wipe the "Zionist cancer" from the Earth. For decades Iran has sponsored terror attacks that killed Jewish civilians. Should Israel not feel threatened by this country having nuclear weapons? The irony of a German claiming that Israel is the real threat to the world should not be lost on anyone. It is appalling that Israel's right to exist in peace and security - the elusive goal it has sought since its inception - is still being questioned by those Europeans and others who helped make the question necessary in the first place. Sara Miller