To the editor:

I for one am grateful the police captured the mass killer in Georgia who killed a security guard and seven women at spas in Atlanta. I’m glad they nabbed him before he got to Florida.

Now is the time for Senators Scott and Rubio to put aside partisan rhetoric and restore the Violence Against Women Act, (VAWA) passed last week by Congress as HR 1620.

Women should be protected against violence as a special and distinct class, if for no other reason than the frequency of murder committed by male partners in every state.

It is an ugly state of affairs that the National Rifle Association has targeted this legislation, as that will require moral courage from our senators to restore this legislation that dropped the murder rate in half when first enacted in the last century.

Congress and the Senate passed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) decades ago in a bipartisan manner (Remember when we had bipartisan manners in Washington legislature?) but it lapsed in the Trump era. It should be reinstated.

Those few men who think their right to control women’s bodies extends to a right to hunt us down like deers in season need greater supervision and deterrence than the loading instruction on a box of bullets. The Violence Against Women Act allowed for assistance with restraining orders during domestic conflict that saved thousands of lives. It is time to reinstate this legislation. Please call upon Rubio and Scott to show a little moral fortitude, for your daughters and yourselves.

Ellen Starbird

Cape Coral