Letters for February 22, 2018

Opinion vs. bias

Re “Demagogues and YOU” (Let Freedom Ring, Feb. 8):

This guy [columnist Brendan Trainor] is seriously “slanted.”

Besides errors (like Salazar/Honduras previously), he fails to keep track of his premise, then drifts into libertarian rants and as usual, sex workers.

The California Legislature isn’t “considering” criminalizing plastic straws (Brendan be graspin’ at). A bill was introduced—and withdrawn within a week—that would ban said straws.The penalty was merely part of the awkward process of ensuring some compliance, and doubtless would have been reconfigured into something reasonable. But never mind, because industry lobbyists killed the notion outright.

Dismissing real issues via alt-right “logic” isn’t an opinion, it’s just bias.

Kent Callahan

Sun Valley

Definition is everything

A fundamental problem with banning assault weapons is defining the line. It seems easy to know one when you see one, but defining the line in a legally-binding way is not trivial.

Several of the National Rifle Association’s more successful arguments against regulations are based on fuzzy definitions for what types of weapons are involved. Differentiating based on single action and double action could be a starting point. Single action allows for high rates of fire as well as potential for large capacity magazines. Single action reduces fire rates as well as the amount of ammunition that can be discharged before having to stop and reload. A key concept to keep in mind is that single action is very, very deadly for both hunting and typical self-defense when in the hands of a properly-trained citizen—the key words being “properly-trained.”

For those who might insist on a need for semi-automatic capability, perhaps that could be managed with a universal set of very high hurdles and very tight hoops to navigate that are particular to those types of weapons. The rules must also include a very quick-to-implement process for revoking that privilege. (Yes, semi-automatic capability can be defined as a privilege.) The key concept here is that it is better to temporarily inconvenience a potential gun owner than it is to bury children. Banning guns outright ain’t gonna happen without a Gort (ref: The Day the Earth Stood Still), but I’m not yet seeing a need for good people to have the maximum firepower that single action weapons provide.

Michel Rottmann

Virginia Highlands

Cancer and robbery?

Re “The Russian front” (Notes from the Neon Babylon, Feb. 8):

Dear Bruce: It’s been a while since I’ve picked up an RN&R and your trashy juvenile “Note” brought back the reason WHY! You have no literary talent, your vocabulary is atrocious, and since you are clearly an over-emotional, rapacious, immature “man,” you should probably see your shrink and increase your medications or get off the bottle!

You apparently don’t have the ability to research and analyze the truth but are a one-sided, destructive, irresponsible, cretinous, inaccurate, chauvinistic bully who takes the initiative to insult the President and Sarah Sanders who is doing her job. Why? Because some liberal rag thinks you can write? Ha! Do you call that journalism?

You and your four-letter, perverted, illiterate vocabulary should be banned from ever putting an article in a public paper again for decent humans, especially women, to read.

It’s this one-sided, malicious rhetoric that has divided this country, and people like you should do a little meditation and get a grip on reality before you spew these lies and hatred. You might want to reflect on this quote:

Dr. Wayne W. Dyer: “Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.”

Or can you read, think or comprehend the English language? There are always—two sides!

Dianne Glass

Reno