Letters to the Editor

Letters to editor: Jan. 21

Tax, control bullet sales

It’s too late for gun control. Millions of guns are already out there and a gun is a simple mechanical device that can function for decades if maintained. Guns don’t kill people, bullets kill people. It’s time for bullet control.

The Aurora, Colo., theater shooter ordered 6,000 bullets online for home delivery. The San Bernardino, Calif., shooters still had 5,000 bullets in their home and 1,600 in their car after committing the murders.

Bullet sellers were not suspicious of such large purchases and were happy to pocket the profit with no questions asked. High-volume bullet sales need to be tracked and regulated.

It’s time that the right to bear arms includes responsibility for bearing arms. The police response in San Bernardino cost a lot of money. Do the gun advocates pay that bill? No, everyone pays. It’s time to add a tax to every bullet sold. The tax should be high enough to cover the cost of gun violence, including lifetime care for permanently disabled victims.

This would make the cost of bullets much higher, slowing sales and murders. As sales drop the tax can be increased until the cost of gun violence stabilizes.

Kevin Kline


Thuggery, not free market

I write in response to a recent letter describing the free market with the assertion “…the coal industry has brought us thousands of mining deaths and injuries, a wanton disregard for safety and human well-being, black-lung disease, union busting and worker intimidation, mountaintop removal, environmental devastation, a mounting health crisis for populations exposed to toxic streams and wells, political corruption, persistent poverty and climate-change denial.”

The writer needs to take some college classes on economics. While some coal companies indeed committed the sins mentioned above, and they are truly terrible, none of them are parts of the basic principles of free enterprise. They are simply criminal acts.

The free market is fair trading to achieve rational self-interest, such as when we go to work to collect paychecks so we can acquire capital to own homes, automobiles and other goods. The thuggery the writer mentions is neither fair trading or rational in any way.

Roy Crawford


Reduce meat from diet

Dietary Guidelines for Americans, recently released by U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services, mark the ninth time in a row that the meat industry has successfully suppressed scientific findings recommending reduced meat consumption. The reduction was recommended by the government-appointed Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee in a 571-page report based on review of thousands of studies.

Reduced meat consumption was first recommended in 1977 by the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, a precursor to the Dietary Guidelines. The meat industry forced the committee to destroy all copies of the report and to remove the recommendation from a new edition.

That wanton government sellout to the industry has replayed itself with every new edition of the guidelines since then. These guidelines shape school lunches and other government food programs and undermine public-health campaigns to lower rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

Fortunately, consumers are not easily duped. Sales of plant-based meats, cheeses, milks and ice creams have skyrocketed, and every grocery store provides seemingly countless choices of fruits and vegetables.

Lawrence Hoffman


Spare soft women

In response to syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker’s argument against women in combat: “Nature’s own agenda,” for which Parker is not personally responsible, means that she is not capable of logical, rational, cold thought. As a female, she must necessarily be swayed by her monthly hormonal changes and her soft-hearted, emotionally based thinking.

Do we really want feminine journalists? They could be captured and tortured in foreign countries, whereas their male counterparts are immune from torture and rape. How could we live in a society where a young, female journalist is “crucified, burned or beheaded” in the name of hard-hitting and honest journalism?

Americans need to wake up and turn the clock back to the days when helpless, soft, tender females are sheltered in the home and free from the dangers, predations and challenges of the outside world.

Sally Wasielewski