Letters to the Editor - Jan. 18, 2013

I think Kirk is right on. It is truely amazing how some people can demand that the schools be made safe and what a horrible thing it would be to have a gun in school. Folks, your children are getting gunned down and there is no way to stop them today. We need to make entering and leaving the school a bit harder than walking in and out. Place armed security at each entrence, make sure each classroom has a second exit, educate teachers not to bunch the children in a group and other common sense actions. It is too bad we need to do this but there is a very sinister person out there that wants to hurt and kill people. Like it or not we need to be prepared to stop that person.

"Like it or not we need to be prepared to stop that person."

I agree with 2003

I agree with Mike Dandy.We moved here from Beaverton in 91’ to escape the congestion and have commuted to PDX ever since. We were promised a bypass back then, enough is enough build it already. Remember Calamity Jane’s? We will see real growth in Dundee if we can reduce the amount of traffic.

Lack of traffic will hurt Dundee more than it will help Dundee. Traffic is good if it were managed properly. There should have been four lanes through Dundee just like every other city. The cost would have been 1/10th the cost of the two-lane bypass. The Bypass will be the most expensive project in ODOT history and we get a two-lane 3.5 mile road filled with trucks.

Mr. Tony Hartford, the following is a link to the Oregonian article about the armed man at Clackamas Town Center:

http://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascounty/index.ssf/2012/12/security_guard_said_he_had_rob.html

This is an example of why having properly prepared, armed, citizens can save lives. He did not have to fire his weapon to deter the shooter from continuing his rampage, in fact he chose not to fire so as not to endanger anyone else.

The shooting examples you give are all "gun free" zones, Columbine had one armed security guard, but once they were past him there was nothing in their way. Keeping firearms out of the hands of responsible citizens is not going to prevent these shootings. The Constitution states that the governments duty is is to protect our rights, not justifying taking them away. They are granted by our Creator; recognized, and supposedly defended, by our government. It is difficult to have a reasonable discussion on the topic of gun violence, when law abiding citizens are treated like criminals.

It is even more difficult to have a reasonable discussion about gun violence and public policy with someone who believes that "our Creator" has anything to do with it.

Tony Hartford --"I don’t own a gun because I know I can’t hit what I’m aiming at."

That is easily remedied with classes and practice. And if your weapon of choice happens to be a shotgun, accuracy means little but direction of fire. In my opinion, were one to encounter a violent situation, five rounds (without plug) would be more than adequate to influence the appetite of most wrong-doers.

I am so weary of seeing God's name dropped in order to bolster a position. Please, keep your religion and provincial ideas private.

David and Lulu, have you read the Declaration of Independence? You should know what it says before you accuse me of using religion.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

These are the words of our founders. This is an issue of RIGHTS. Our founders stated that our rights are granted by a Creator, to be protected by the government. When you give government authority above the Creator, you become a subject.

They do not expressly state what that Creator is, and neither did I. I did not make this about religion, I did not "name drop", or bring any of my personal beliefs into this. Though I would be willing to have that discussion under different circumstances.

Why should a bunch of old, white, rich men have any relevance today? Whoops, look at the Senate.

"Whoops, look at the Senate." --Lulu

Just curious,

Has anyone taken the time toread through the entire 'Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act' ... to discover whether or not it covers the cost of a 'Race' reassignment procedure for a United States Senator, and if so, what is the co-pay?

It seems to me that the right that ought to trump all others, regardless of whether it came from a "Creator" or not, and regardless of whether it appears in the founding documents of the United States, is the right of a child to go to school without fearing that he or she may die in a hail of bullets.

"....the right of a child to go to school without fearing that he or she may die in a hail of bullets."

David, nobody would argue otherwise, but disarming people that are not predisposed to committing such heinous acts is not going to prevent those that would. A person bent on killing school children or any other groups would just devise or invent some different manner to accomplish his or her act of mass murder.

That I know of, Timothy McVeigh never fired so much a single shot from his own small arsenal of semi-auto weapons. How many kids did he kill in a hail of flying shrapnel?

All in all, I believe their are more children beaten to death in their own homes every year, than there are murdered by guns at school, and I would further surmise, that, their are far more children sexually molested by teachers, than there are children shot to death in a classroom environment. What comes next, fortifying schools, and bussing them to and from in armored personel vehicles?

Perhaps even mandatory quarterly polygraph examinations of all school personel, might prove helpful in weeding out the pedophiles...(you know)...for the kids.

I believe that every child in America deserves to live in a society free of tobacco products. If our President, the Senate and our house of Representatives truly wanted to save lives on an epic scale, they would come together and ban not only the sale of tobacco, but the cultivation of it as well, on American soil.

You can revere the founding fathers till the cows come home, but they have no relevance when, in their infinite wisdom, they deemed people like me unworthy to voice an opinion or cast a vote.
Let's haul ourselves into the present tense. Has anyone noticed how most of these mass shooters look crazy as bedbugs, maniacal, bizarre? Loughner, Lanza, Holmes, the Norwegian guy?

This is an extraordinarily complex topic, and I acknowledge there is no single public policy response to this. To be sure, much of the problem is beyond the reach of any law -- the fact that violence is inextricably bound up with virtually every aspect of American life, for example.

However, this country is drowning in firearms, and anyone who believes that doesn't have something to do with a type of horrific crime that has become a regular occurrence is not being serious. But I know this: There are free, democratic societies in this world where 1) There is no Second Amendment, 2) Law-abiding citizens can and do own firearms for legitimate purposes, and 3) Mass shootings either do not happen or are rare and the rate of firearm-related homicide is a fraction of what it is in the United States.

It's time we learn from them.

Lulu,

At the time the founding fathers created the Constitution, very little was accomplished anywhere on this planet by way of any vote taken of the local populace, indigenous, or otherwise. It had always been the ultra-rich that 'owned' the ability to decide the fate of the peoples beneath their caste. Who controls the weapons, controls the people

Do you believe that the indigenous peoples that had subjugated and made slaves of other indigenous peoples living on this continent had voting rights?

David,

The gangs that murder and terrorize the peoples of Chicago, employ the weaponry of the day. Sure, our federal government through some perceived vanity, create and enforce laws that abolish the legal sale of high-capacity weapons to the general public. But doing so, wouldn't stop the flow of those weapons across our borders and into the busy hands of criminals anymore than has its current federal ban on Heroin, Cocaine and Methamphetamines.

The Cartels that rule South of our borders, will simply step-up to the occasion and add another product, to their current export line.

I don't like to use a cliche, but the phrase "missing the forest for the trees" seems appropriate. We're not talking here about solving a Millennium Prize algebra problem for which there is only a single elusive solution. If one looks globally at firearms policy and practice, it becomes clear that it is possible for citizens to have guns but not have an escalating series of mass homicides in public places.

As I was thumbing through the Cliff Notes for the Declaration of Independence, I had to laugh after reading "all men are created equal." I guess they meant that phrase literally. Four legs good, two legs bad.
Heraclitus observed how "no man steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." Was he ever wrong!

A man kneels down at a river tor a second sip of water and spots what appears to have been a 'Baby Ruth' float by. Now, being the forward thinker that that man is, and taking into account that the man has absolutely no idea what a "Baby Ruth' actually is, there is a definable change that occurred in both the river, and the man.

No doubt in my mind, that when one group discovers that another group residing further up river has been floating "Baby Ruth's down river, changes will occur on a much larger scale. Both in the Man and in the River. Heraclitus was correct in his observation, and to think he'd realized so much so many centuries before the Baby Ruth had actually come into existence anywhere on this planet, Lulu.

What?
If I were a Greek and noticed what resembled a Baby Ruth float by, my first thought would be how the people upriver need to upgrade their sewer system.

I do agree with you Lulu, as far as men (or women) are concerned, never at any point in the history of mankind, has there been a time when all men have been equal, And there never will be. The concept does look good on paper, though totally impractical in terms of reality.

There may not have been a time when all men (or women) on the entire planet were "equal" in the sense that you mean, but certainly there have been examples of indigenous populations that were egalitarian in nature -- tribes that lived for hundreds or even thousands of years in harmony with the planet and without any regard for social status, "class" or the accumulation of personal or private wealth.

Yeah...well...maybe, kinda sort'a, but I would be more enclined to believe that living in harmony with the planet is one thing, and living in harmony amongst a group of people is quite a different aspect. People back in those times thrived through/by some proven ability to contribute to their group or tribe in some meaningful way, and not by just merely existing. To continue to exist a person had to contribute.

Could very well have been, that the sole, if not the very reason, that some crippled up old coot got to keep being fed and sheltered by his group or tribe, was his ability to cause some bit of laughter to occur around the campfire, and the two toughest and strongest guys in the group thought that ability to be good enough to alive.

Now we live in a welfare state, have television, and crap into our water supply.

Should have read---> .... that ability was good enough to be kept alive.