Letters for June 30, 2016

Gun talk

Re “Prayer isn’t enough” (Editorial, June 16):

Hearing of the recent murders in Orlando certainly caused an emotional reaction. We felt heartache and misery over the lost lives, and the attendant suffering of friends and family of the victims. But it also caused some of us to think. I’d like to share my own thoughts.

First, regarding the hue and cry. The outrage and the demand for a political solution. More gun laws! Or fewer gun laws! However you feel about guns, almost no one, including the NRA, thinks that citizens in a crowd with guns in their pockets will solve this problem.

When we rely on politicians to give us solutions, we disempower ourselves. I’ll use Orlando as an example. What if four determined people had rushed this gunman when the first shot was fired? He might have gotten off another shot or two. But multiple murders would have been prevented. What if training and tactics were taught for this purpose to a large number of men and women? College athletes, martial artists, anyone who exercises and is strong and fit? What if this really caught on and became a movement? So that a handful or dozens of strong, alert, motivated people likely would be present among any large crowd or assembly? This could certainly change the outlook for deranged and angry people in search of easy victims.

Perhaps I’m an optimist. But I believe there are large numbers of people who will risk their own safety, and act with courage and determination to save other lives.

Reynold Weissinger

Berry Creek

Politicians on the left and on the right expect to control violent behavior by passing yet more laws. Where’s the common-sense thinking in solving this problem?

We can now buy a cellphone with technology that allows only the user to access the phone (via a thumbprint or password). Why can’t we do the same for guns?

Most criminals get their hands on guns by buying or stealing them from someone authorized to have them in the first place. Manufacturing guns that work only when a fingerprint or password is used will cut down on the illegal sales and use of guns.

There’s also a very dark undercurrent in the resistance to controlling our guns. Those of us who don’t trust our government to do things in our best interest and fear the confiscation of our guns by the government so that [its leaders] can enforce martial law or install a dictator. Don’t laugh! This last idea was even talked about by the framers of our Constitution. Mankind will always seek power—absolute power corrupts. Guns in the hands of ordinary citizens will prevent that from ever happening.

Loretta Ann Torres

Chico

‘Repulsive spectacle’

Harry S. Truman once commented that “a president needs political understanding to run the government, but may be elected without it.”

How was Truman able to forecast the repulsive spectacle that is currently transpiring in America? It seems insane to realize—with unrelenting horror and immense aversion—that we could possibly witness such a phenomenon in action on this rapidly approaching Tuesday following the first Monday in November.

Kenneth B. Keith

Los Molinos

Superdelegate on Sanders

Re “Presidential oratory” (Cover story, by CN&R staff/contributors, June 9):

I have been asked a number of questions about why Sanders visited Chico and the impact. Our Congressional District 1 is 90 percent white, the highest in California.

Sanders across America did the best in white rural areas (such as four white rural caucus states, with turnouts of less than 7 percent) and that’s why he did a rally in the North State. Such rallies cost about $150,000. The net result for Sanders was one additional delegate—four, instead of a three-three split.

Congressional District 1 gave Sanders a 58 percent margin—the highest in the state. San Francisco, the most liberal county in California, was won by Secretary Clinton with 54 percent. San Francisco is a city of white liberals, many minorities and a high number of the LGBT community, which is why she will be the Democratic presidential nominee.

When final, Clinton will win California by about 375,000 votes, including 47 out of 53 congressional districts, and Clinton will have about 255 grassroots delegates out of the 475 in California.

Older African-American voters do not respond well to old white men yelling (and waiving their arms) on their TV. Clinton won about 85 percent of the African-American vote.

Bob Mulholland

Chico

Editor’s note: Bob Mulholland is a superdelegate.