Last week I was alarmed to see in The Leader an insert for Coastal that featured a double center page ad for guns, some of which appeared to be assault weapons or at least looked to me like weapons that no one had any business hunting with.

I called The Leader and said that if I saw similar ads in the future, I would cancel my subscription. The Coastal insert appeared again this week and again contained the ad for guns. The person to whom I spoke by phone last week at The Leader was quite concerned about the issue, thanked me and said she would convey my concerns to advertising. So I assume it is the newspaper’s policy to continue to run ads promoting such gun sales.

I am canceling my subscription to your newspaper. In doing so, I would like to call your attention to the column written by Gail Collins in [the June 15] New York Times.

It is titled “Play Ball, and Then Gunfire”: “To start, we need to come together on a consensus that there’s something wrong with a country in which an average of 93 people are killed with guns every day, in which gun homicides are so common that news reports don’t bother to mention how the murderer obtained his weapon, and in which even multiple shootings often don’t make the national news unless there’s some suggestion the crime might be related to terrorism. Write a letter.”

As a longtime subscriber, I am sorry that I have to write to you. Gail Collins sees a need to change the conversation. Newspapers are a good place to start.

SANDRA ROUVEROL

Port Townsend