Letters for June 7, 2022
CMR and AR-15’s
Please, please, please vote to stop all sales of assault-type rifles to the general public, especially to 18-year-olds! And while we’re at it, let’s limit magazine capacities to 10 rounds. (If you can’t hit a deer with 10 shots, you should have your eyes checked and/or give up hunting.) Also, an affordable, comprehensive health care plan for everyone would help families raise young men who are not unbalanced and angry.
Jim Parry
Spokane
Innocent lives lost
I shake my head in disgust and disbelief in our country and its citizens. We are on the verge of taking away the rights of women to choose whether she can terminate a pregnancy, but do nothing about the rights of innocent children and victims of gun violence. Our nation is poised to protect the rights of the unborn, but is doing nothing to protect the lives of the innocent children being slaughtered in our schools.
The gun rights activists spew the same rhetoric – “we need more laws to protect gun ownership,” “it’s not guns that kill people, it’s the people using them” and “we need armed people to protect our children in school.” Why? For at least half a century or more, we never needed armed personnel at our schools to protect our children from getting shot. So why now? The arguments gun owners use is futile at convincing me that this is the answer to this problem. All one needs to do is to look at the statistics of gun violence around the world and compare it to our country. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that if gun laws were passed to prohibit the sale and ownership of automatic assault weapons by the common citizen (versus military or police force), the number of mass shootings would decline.
I’m not in support of restricting all gun ownership, but there is no reason the common citizen should own a gun that is designed to kill mass amounts of people. When are the American people and its elected officials going to stand up against the powerful gun lobby? How many more children and innocent people are going to have to die?
This country is a disgrace to all the parents and loved ones who have suffered the loss of innocent lives if we can’t do anything to stop this senseless violence.
Diane Belyea
Spokane
Mayhem
We are assured that all we need to do is pray and everything will be fine. We won’t miss our dead child. We will be uplifted by prayer. The years we’ve lived with and loved our dead child is of little consequence. The memories of the lives we once shared together will simply bring us joy. Prayers will eliminate sadness. After all it’s just another dead child. There are thousands more still to be shot dead. We must not let their deaths deter us from the defense of our freedom to buy guns and shoot more children. This right is guaranteed by the constitution.
If we selfishly mourn for a lost child and bring renewed sadness, that will dishonor the sacred gun rights cause. There is no need to re-examine this settled law. We are after all, a civilized nation. We dare not pretend there is another way, a better way. That would imply that these children died for no reason. Their deaths sanctify our gun rights. Our conservative heroes can hold their heads high knowing that they resisted all attempts to prevent consideration of gun bans. Let the mayhem continue. We are after all, a civilized nation.
Gilbert Hart
Spokane
Gun control
When I was learning to hunt, back in the mid-20th century, Grandpa told me that shotguns could only have three bullets because the government didn’t want us to kill too many ducks. That rule is still in place.
So, why won’t our government limit the number of bullets in guns that are being used to kill our friends, neighbors and kids?
Tom Brattebo
Liberty Lake
Keep students safe
We need to do everything possible to protect the students. All schools should have a metal detector to check students when they enter and then the doors should be locked. After that anyone who needs to enter the building has to push a buzzer and be identified. When this is done then they can let them in the door. All classrooms should be locked after the students have entered. The only way to enter is by a key or by someone inside. This would be costly and inconvenient but our students’ lives are more important.
All guns owners should have their guns locked up in a safe place where no one else is able to get to them. If this is not done, it could become a serious problem.
We must improve our background checks so people like this 18-year-old would not be allowed to purchase a gun. As we learned more about his background it should have set off several red flags which wasn’t covered on the background procedure. This shows that our background checks must be more extensive as we can’t have people with guns who shouldn’t have them.
If we hear or see something that isn’t right, we should report it to our superior. If there is a problem, we need to find out what caused it in the first place and then take steps to correct it.
Joe Schauble
Spokane
Loss of freedom
Government agencies tasked with fighting misinformation inevitably and without exception lead to loss of freedoms for the citizenry.
There are two cases to be considered.
First, the ruling party has as its objective the goal of achieving the most equitable common good and prosperity for the citizenry. The Party believes itself to be the best means to achieve The Common Good. If The Party thought that they were not the best means to achieve The Common Good, they would cede power to The Opposition.
Now consider information circulating in the media, which although true, reflects poorly on The Party or positively on The Opposition. The Party, for the sake of The Common Good must censor this true information. If they don’t, they are betraying the goal of The Common Good.
Likewise, if there is false information circulating in the media that reflects poorly on The Opposition yet positively on The Party, for the same reason cited above, that false information must be promoted as true.
For the second case, consider the goal of The Party is maintaining political power. In this case, it follows immediately that The Party will use the agency to promote the interests of The Party.
Therefore, in both cases, true information will be censored and false information will be promoted. This leads to a loss of information, knowledge, and transparency for the citizenry.
This is a loss of freedoms.
Hap Rhodehamel
Spokane
Formula shortage fix?
I’m not a chemist, nor do I know much about mass production. But pharmacists are sometimes known as compounders, making their own in-house pharmaceuticals and medicines.
Is it possible for local pharmacists to create baby formula batches using Abbott’s recipe? If so, nationalize the recipe and give it to pharmacies for production, or provide it with a nondisclosure agreement. It would beat having to fly in formula from Europe or waiting until July for Abbott’s goods to show up in stores.
Patrick Conley
Colville
Gun laws
How did we get here, and where do we go from here?
We got here because of the refusal of some elected senators and congressmen to listen to what we want. More than half of the American people have no problem with background checks for the purchase of a gun. Our vote for these lawmakers isn’t as precious to them as is the NRA lining their pockets, and obviously neither are the lives of school children.
That might sound harsh, but time and again, for them, it’s guns over children. Their thoughts and prayers are hollow. Nineteen children and two teachers died in the state of Texas and three days later they welcomed the NRA. How about that for a moral compass?
All I ever hear is, “They’re going to take our guns, they’re going to take our guns.” Have they ever taken them? If you legitimately own guns, why is it a problem for you to demand background checks? Why is it a problem for you to accept the age of 21 and a background check for the purchase of an AR-15? I seriously believe that only the military and law enforcement really need an AR-15, but even I know that will never fly. The safety of a child has to come first, or we will be stuck here forever.
Laura Hegel
Spokane
19 beautiful souls
Nineteen beautiful little souls who will not see another sunset or sunrise, who will not play through another summer.
Nineteen beautiful little souls who will not open up any more presents under the Christmas tree, attend high school, graduate from college, find a sweetheart, get married, have their own children then grandchildren.
Nineteen beautiful little souls whose parents will grieve and mourn every second of every minute of every day for the rest of their heartbroken lives.
Nineteen beautiful little souls whose lives were horribly shattered by a jobless high school dropout who was able to somehow purchase two killing machines and over 1,000 rounds of ammunition.
There have been 214 mass shootings in this country so far this year with 27 of them being school shootings. It’s not a question of if any more but when. It also can’t be the question of if we’re going to do something about losing more beautiful little souls but when because thoughts and prayers just ain’t cutting it.
Joe Speranzi
Spokane