Second Amendment 'rights' do not mean children should be slaughtered: Letters

Second Amendment 'rights' do not mean children should be slaughtered

April 5 — To the Editor:

I sometimes wonder if puppies’ throats were slashed or kittens’ tongues removed as a consequence of those touting Second Amendment rights if THEN perhaps assault rifles would be banned. Or background checks on guns implemented. Or gun safety required.

Did these puppy and kitten images cause you discomfort? Anger perhaps? Good. That feeling is miniscule compared to those affected by ridiculous, utterly nonsensical gun violence. Every day.

Think parents who have buried their children, think teachers who have been slaughtered, think police addressing yet another war zone, a war zone where alphabets adorn the walls, where colorful rugs identify shapes and numbers.

Guns are the NUMBER ONE killer of children. Enough. I am a teacher and have spent more time preparing for an intruder than I have texting my own children.

Second Amendment “rights” do not mean children should be slaughtered.  Who ARE we? Who ARE you?

Let us become the people our children deserve us to be: safe, reasonable, accountable. We treat our pets with more dignity than we do our children. Let us value schools, children, educators, lives.

We’ve had more than enough. It’s time gun laws are addressed and at the very least, ban assault weapons. Now.

Susan Dromey Heeter

Newmarket

We won't solve gun violence by confiscating guns

April 4 — To The Editor:

Again, retired airline captain Bill Kingston of New Castle chimes in with comments related to being an imperfect Christian and a gun owner. Not having a clue what ties the two together, I must ask the good captain, what is his point? Asking what kind of gun Jesus would own is both an unreasonable question as well as it makes no sense.

Poking fun as religion or gun violence have no place in these pages. Getting gun violence under control does not start with going door to door and confiscating legal and law abiding gun owners guns like the Nazis did. It starts with tough governmental controls as to who gets to purchase guns and how it happens. It starts with severe punishments for violators and not a bevy of social workers crying “victims."

The same holds true of when a human enters their motor vehicle impaired by marijuana or alcohol. That vehicle then becomes an “assault vehicle” capable of taking many lives as it is operated by an impaired person. How do we get assault vehicles off the road? People control! Legislation to make those behaviors prohibitive and make the consequences so harsh that it will dissuade and discourage people from doing those things.

My advice to the good captain is to enjoy the Great Island and all it has to offer and embrace his retirement and take care of himself.

T. Stephen McCarthy

Portsmouth

Let's learn from McIntyre debacle and avoid public-private partnerships

April 4 — To the Editor:

Terminating the plan for the city of Portsmouth to acquire the McIntyre property through the Historic Monument Program was not the way that our city had planned to celebrate its 400th birthday, but hopefully the experience can provide a valuable lesson.  I hope that our city leaders will think long and hard before committing us to any future public-private partnerships because they never seem to end well.  It would take more than the pages of this newspaper to detail all of the financial, emotional, and legal problems created by this unfortunate endeavor, and these difficulties may be far from over.  The McIntyre saga seems to be a fiscal nightmare from which we may not awaken for a very long time.

Let us also not forget the negatives of the public-private partnership which produced the Foundry Place garage.  We vastly overpaid for the poorly located site, and the facility has not served its intended purpose of providing convenient parking for downtown businesses. It has also not fulfilled its potential for generating revenue, and its garish appearance would be more appropriate for the Las Vegas strip than for our historic city.

Most of our city councilors and administrative staff simply do not have the background required to go toe-to-toe with big developers. Even though two members of the previous council were highly experienced retired business executives, one of whom remains on the current council, this was not enough to equip us to deal with the hardball tactics of Redgate/Kane.

I cringed when I read that the potential public-private partnership to build an ice rink in Portsmouth would not cost the taxpayers anything, because this is exactly what we were told at the onset of the McIntyre debacle. I may have also read about references to a possible public-private partnership to create affordable housing. Although an ice rink and affordable housing sound like appealing projects, our leaders should carefully assess the risks before entering into any public-private partnerships in order to achieve these ends.

Christina Lusky

Portsmouth

Follow Michelle Yeoh's example in real life

April 4 — To the Editor:

Many adjectives can describe recent Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh, such as stunning, ageless, multi-talented, hardworking and philanthropic. Based on her body of work, visionary appears to apply as well.

After watching her over the years, one of her memorable roles was as Wai Lin in the 1997 film "Tomorrow Never Dies." Together with James Bond, she prevented fictitious media mogul Elliot Carver from starting World War III by using his news network to spread false information and pit nations against each other. It is ironic then that just a year earlier, an Australian immigrant started a news network in the United States. Over the years that network has divided Americans to the point of approaching divisions not seen since the Civil War, i.e., family members fighting other family members.

There are some options we can explore. Perhaps as a sequel to Tomorrow Never Dies, Michelle Yeoh can play an immigration agent who can strip a billionaire media mogul of his US citizenship and deport him back to Australia. Yet again, she could rely on her science fiction credentials, go back in time, and stop such a divisive network from starting in the first place. Another option would be joining Michelle Yeoh in her preferred "Everything Everywhere All at Once" universe, where inclusivity, acceptance, love and kindness win out.

Congratulations on your Oscar Michelle Yeoh, may we all work to rise above our own frenetic lives and aspire to live in a real world full of inclusivity, acceptance, love and kindness.

Don Cavallaro

Rye

NH congressional delegation should vote against the RESTRICT Act

April 5 — To the Editor:

I am urging New Hampshire citizens to petition our congressional delegation to vote against the RESTRICT Act (SB 686).  It's a deeply troubling piece of legislation that would give the government broad authority to restrict or ban all sorts of businesses and communications tools, so long as they're tangentially related to any country it (the government) decides is an adversary. The government does not need additional powers to limit the freedoms of law abiding citizens.

It will could allow the government to make it a crime for law abiding citizens to use VPNs.

Please urge our representatives to vote NO on SB 686 – the RESTRICT Act.

Thom Gibney

Greenland

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: 2nd Amendment 'rights' do not include school shootings: Letters