This is Viewpoints for Monday, August 24, 2015
Gun safety?
I applaud Rosemary Haskell’s op-ed suggesting we should treat gun safety in the home as a health issue. Wait, no I don’t. It was a blatant call to get the government to demonize guns with a massive ad campaign at taxpayer expense. Because, as she admits, “opposing an American citizen’s right to have a gun, as you know, just isn’t working as a public argument.” There’s several good reasons for that. The main one being, assuming you’re not afraid of guns, is there’s no compelling reason to strip us of our rights given the statistics and data on guns in America. She says, “President Obama realizes the stunned amazement of other nations when they see our daily butcher’s bill.” Funny, our homicide rate has halved since the 1990s. I like the hyperbole, though. Then she waxes poetic on how you can’t get a gun in the UK and have to resort to stabbing people if you want to kill them. Unfortunately for UK citizens that’s exactly what happens; the UK has a higher violent crime rate than the U.S. And don’t think that knife is any better for you. According to a recent University of Pennsylvania study, you’re just as likely to die from a stabbing as a gunshot.
She then trots out the tired “think of the children” mantra used to curtail our rights ever since ... ever. Yet again, numbers just don’t support her cause. Unintentional firearm discharge is less than 1 percent of all unintentional deaths in the U.S. But hey, that appeal to emotion works so just keep on hammering us with it. To finish up, she shows us just what kind of thinking can produce such a poorly written and researched essay, “By presenting ‘guns at home’ as a public-health problem, and not as an individual-rights lightning rod, you may help us to stop killing one another.” However, she quickly admits, “Your ‘gun safety at home’ campaign won’t get the criminals’ guns off the streets.”
I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to look up who’s doing most of the killing and whether the guns are legal. You won’t be surprised, but at least you’ll have hard facts next time we rehash this topic. Sources: Centers for Disease Control, U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Annals of Emergency Medicine.
— Matt Dykes
Macon
Thank you, Donald
The talking heads in the media would like you to believe they are reporting the mindset of the American public. That what they claim on their programs and newspapers reflect what people are thinking. That falsehood is at the bottom of political correctness. If anything, media attempt to shape public opinion.
When someone says anything media disagree with, they begin an unrelenting attack to correct that person’s thinking. This is shortly followed by calls for an apology. God help anyone who mounts a defense and refuses to say they’re sorry. Tiger Woods, Jeb Bush and Adrian Peterson come quickly to mind.
Say whatever you’d like about Donald Trump, he has shown the way to push back against political correctness. And lately, you can read about people who have emulated his style to challenge and successfully beat back the media’s attempt to shame them.
Carly Fiorina, Eagles coach Chip Kelly and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos are recent examples that prove political correctness is a media invention that goes against the will of the American public. And most telling is that the media cannot mount a defense against anyone who honestly speaks an alternative view and is unapologetic about it. Thank you, Donald Trump, for showing us the way.
— Bob Norcott
Byron
Stop paying illegals
In response to Bert Peters, I agree that illegal immigrants do cost local governments in the form of food stamps, medical, social and other related services that otherwise they would not spend. I used to teach public high school in Texas and I know we were always short on funds. The subject of having to spend for educating illegals always came up. However, teachers do not work for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and they are not law enforcement. And because they blend very well with the American students, you can’t say they are illegal unless you have proof. Teacher worth their weight will never deny students their chance to an education for any reason — even if they are illegal. Several of my students were illegal and they always outscored American students because they wanted to learn.
If the cost of providing services to illegals is the reason for a government to spend too much money, then I say stop paying them. It’s that simple. Once that happens then they will go to another country or stay home. However, those who were born in the U.S. deserve the services because they are American, even if their parents are illegal. So says the 14th Amendment.
There was a comment to your letter that illegals take jobs from Americans. I would like to know what job an American lost to an illegal immigrant. Was it at the peach or pecan orchards, or scrubbing toilets? Yeah, those are jobs Americans want.
— Esiquio Hernandez
Warner Robins
A few issues
I have been studying Donald Trump’s immigration policy. I agree with him that we need to do more to secure our border. However, his policies are oversimplified and full of problems. Trump’s idea of tariffs on Mexican products does not lead to Mexico paying for a wall. Every American who buys a product made in Mexico will be the ones paying for the wall. This means higher prices on gasoline, cars and a large number of products Americans use from Mexico. It also means American farmers will sell less to Mexico because Mexico would surely put tariffs on American products
Not giving citizenship to children of illegal immigrants sounds good but the position has problems. First, you need to understand that most children born to illegal immigrants actually have one American as a parent. When you consider how many such immigrants, who come here are single or have children, it is easy to postulate that most births occurring now are to American-illegal immigrant couples. They are American by place of birth, by one parent and by culture. Where do these children belong?
Sending them all back is a classic over-simplification. The costs are staggering. Finding and proving in court that 12 million people are illegal immigrants is not cheap. Clogging our judicial system would be one consequence. How many American rights will we trample by making American prove their citizenship?
These are just a few of Trump’s problems concerning his immigration policy.
— Clarence Berry
Warner Robins
This story was originally published August 23, 2015 at 9:17 PM with the headline "This is Viewpoints for Monday, August 24, 2015 ."