Letters to the Editor: Local representatives complicit in continued deaths
If nothing changes ...
In the 1980s, because of declining sales, gun manufacturers began selling assault rifles to the civilian market. In 1994, there was a federal ban enacted on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines under the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. In 2004, it was allowed to expire.
When something changed ...
During those 10 years of the ban, it has been reported there was a decline in the number of assault weapons recovered from crime scenes, a decreased in the rates of mass shooting fatalities and injuries, and mass shooting fatalities were a 70 percent less likely occurrence than prior to or after the ban.
And yet on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School 12 students and a teacher were killed.
March 21, 2005: Red Lake area and Senior High School 10 people killed
April 16, 2007: Virginia Tech 32 students and faculty killed
Dec. 14, 2012: Sandy Hook Elementary School 20 children and 6 adults killed
Oct. 1, 2015: Umpqua Community College 10 people killed
Feb. 14, 2018: Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School 17 people killed
May 18, 2018: Santa Fe High School 10 people killed
May 24, 2022 Robb Elementary School 19 students and 2 adults killed
If nothing changes ... all the deaths, all the horror, all the tears, all the anguish, all the broken hearts, all the condolences, all the trauma and still nothing changes.
If nothing changes ...
What school, shopping mall, grocery store, church, concert, bar, street corner ... who and how many die next? You? Me? Someones we love and cherish?
If nothing changes ... nothing changes!
Jude Vereyken
Park Township
Suspending gax tax temporarily wrong approach
The Michigan Senate has passed bills that would pause collections on the 6 percent sales and use taxes on gas purchases and the 27-cent-per-gallon excise gas tax (Sentinel, May 27). The pause would run June 15-Sept. 15 in 2022. The House will soon act on similar bills.
Because this pause would reduce tax funding for our public schools and reduce revenue to local governments, I recommend legislators instead follow the example of Britain by levying a tax on the excessive profits being made by oil and gas companies, especially during our current inflationary times. Britain is planning to transfer funds received from this excessive profits tax back to its citizens to ease the cost-of-living increases they are facing.
This action would help out those struggling with rising prices and would encourage spending to fuel the economy. If states cannot levy this kind of taxation on excessive profits made by oil and gas companies, I would urge our federal legislators to take up this opportunity.
Judy Parr
Holland
Local representatives complicit in continued deaths
I am beyond frustrated, I am angry.
The problem is I have no way to get relief from this anger. Another 21 murdered beautiful human beings and they will not be the last ones to be the victims of gun violence supported by the Republican Party at the national and state level.
I can’t impact this at the national level because both my U.S. senators are Democrats and support gun control legislation. They are not the problem. It is the 50 Republican senators who value the Second Amendment and their jobs over the lives of innocent children (unless they are a fetus).
I can’t impact this violence at the state level because both my state senator and representative are Republicans who have knee-jerk reactions to any attempts to control gun ownership. Why do they refuse to take action? Because my fellow citizens who voted for them will not demand they take reasonable and necessary action now instead of waiting for another group of school children to be slaughtered.
And don’t fool yourself: There will be another slaughter and another after that and another after that until you write or call those Republicans and tell them to support reasonable gun control legislation.
Jim Lilly, Luke Meerman, Bradly Slagh, Mary Whiteford and Roger Victory are acting in support of more murders by their unwillingness to be reasonable and responsible. If, as they contend, laws will not keep guns out of the hands of bad people so there is no reason to enact legislation limiting gun ownership, then there is no reason to have laws limiting the use of drugs because people will always be able to get illegal drugs. There is no reason to have laws against drinking and driving because some people will drink and drive. There is no reason to limit access to abortion since people who desperately want an abortion will always be able to get one illegally.
Sit down today and write the people above and demand they act to do what must be done to control access to weapons designed for war but are now the weapon of choice for committing mass murder.
Rich Herbig
Hamilton
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Letters to the Editor: Local representatives complicit in continued deaths
