Letters for Sunday, June 8, 2014

• People, not guns, are the problem • Hawaii could learn from Oregon pioneers • Let’s stick to the real point, avoid personal attacks

People, not guns, are the problem

Geez, I just saw the cartoon in Wednesday’s TGI and I just had to comment. Typical,  typical liberal, antigun views with  zero sense to it at all. It shows a Pinto claiming 27 deaths, a Tylenol Bottle claiming seven deaths and then the all evil, mind of its own handgun claiming a staggering 32,000 deaths. Wow, really? Hmmm, what’s wrong with this picture?

Let’s see, the Pinto was a design flaw, the Tylenol bottles were tampered with. And the gun? Each and every time it took a human being to misuse it to harm themselves or another. It did not mysteriously jump off a table and mow down innocent bystanders at will. Never heard of it, ever. Firearms are simply tools, oh yes they are. Just leave the emotion out of it just for a moment. Firearms serve many purposes and it can be defensive as well as offensive but it takes a live person to wield it against another just like a kitchen knife, a baseball bat or a car. I never see anyone getting too emotional about those inanimate objects. 

Let’s face it, firearms stir the gut emotions. Guns do not do bad things, people do bad things. The gun in the cartoon did not appear defective nor did it look tampered with. And yes, people do die from gunshot wounds but the ultimate responsibility rests with the person who owns that trigger finger, not the trigger. It’s just common sense.

Stephen Shioi

Kapaa

Hawaii could learn from Oregon pioneers

It’s illegal for a kid to walk a mile in Hawaii? Here in the Oregon Territories, we remember that our pioneers walked here … from Missouri  … in one summer.

Wiley Hollingsworth

Pullman, Wash.

Let’s stick to the real point, avoid personal attacks

I appreciate the thoughts shared regarding my comments on military-style weapons being sold at Sports Authority.

First, the personal attacks are a little ridiculous. Some of the nasty comments on the digital version of the letter were quite shocking. Can we stay in the realm of ideas instead of telling me I’m stupid, I haven’t researched my topic, I don’t know Hawaii’s gun laws, I don’t understand our Constitution, I don’t understand the different types of guns, you’re going to buy more guns just to put me in my place? Perhaps, I am stupid. I haven’t done my research: Baloney.

Some comments on your “facts.”

The “well-regulated” portion of the Second Amendment is always ignored by the “guns everywhere” crowd. Our country regulates automobiles much more than we regulate guns. I am thrilled that Hawaii has and enforces tougher gun regulation than the rest of the country. As a result, we have fewer gun related deaths. I’d like to keep it that way. My call was more for against the very public marketing of specific killing machines in a highly visible location. I think a similar, though perhaps more reasonable, debate might occur if we wanted to put a nightclub on Rice Street or a new fast food restaurant right next to a church on Kauai.

I’m aware of the difference between an automatic and a semi-automatic weapon and that you cannot purchase automatic, or “machine guns,” in Hawaii. Are you aware that the Aurora shooter used a semi-automatic version of the M-16, a 12-gauge shotgun and a semi-automatic pistol—no automatic guns? Or that Adam Lanza used no automatic weapons at Sandy Hook? Yes, guns and knives and even just people kill people, but of the 24 people injured recently at a Pennsylvania school by stabbing, all survived. That’s a very different statistic from multiple deaths at every mass shooting. Mass shootings put attention on the problem but the sad truth, discovered by the CDC, is that if there’s a gun in your house, you are three times more likely to die of a gun related incident and it’s usually suicide or domestic violence or both.

Jason Blake

Lihue