Letters for June 26, 2016

Letters for June 26, 2016

Survey went out across the island

With regards to the article published on Friday, June 24, entitled “Hooser: Tell me what you think,” I wanted to point out that the 21,000 surveys mentioned were sent out to the entire island of Kauai and responses were received from every community, from Kekaha to Haena. An earlier article mistakenly implied that only communities from Princeville to Kalaheo were surveyed and this is certainly not the case as the entire island participated.

Because there are so many issues and so many diverse people and opinions in our community I decided to reach out with this survey in a comprehensive effort to determine what the average Kauai resident actually feels and thinks about some of the most important issues of the day.

The survey was sent to an islandwide list of registered voting households from the Westside to the North Shore and nearly 1,000 people took the time to complete and return the survey. I purposefully designed the survey to allow anonymity so all could speak freely and frankly about issues important to them.

I want to thank all who took the time to participate and share your thoughts on important Kauai issues. Complete survey detail and a full tabulation of the results is available at http://www.garyhooser.com

Gary Hooser

Kauai County Councilman

People must be armed, prepared

Dear Chief Perry,

How many mass shootings occurred prior to background checks and waiting periods? Did mass shootings cease or even decrease since implementing those strict regulations?

What makes you believe criminals, especially radical Islamists, will follow “stricter regulations?”

Chief, criminals don’t follow regulations.

Further, how many mass shootings occurred in Gun Free Zones?

I don’t have those easy-to-find statistics off-hand, yet I believe all or the major majority of these mass shootings have occurred in Gun Free Zones.

Shouldn’t we eliminate the Gun Free Zones to eliminate our risk of mass shootings?

We must get armed and train to protect ourselves, and eliminate Gun Free Zones, so these cowards cannot kill us anymore.

Heidi Wolfgang

Kalaheo

Gun control is necessary

Stephen Shioi can’t see past his own flawed thinking about gun control. Chief Perry did not say that the world would “suddenly be all good.” And he didn’t say that “banning guns” was going to stop crime. And he certainly is not “anti-gun,” as Shioi implies. (No one is trying to take your precious guns away from you, Stephen.) The word Perry did use was “control” — as in gun control, especially with regard to assault-type weapons.

Between 1966 and 2012 the United States had five times as many public mass shootings (90) as any other country. The Philippines came in a distant second with 18. The U.S. has less than 5 percent of the world’s population, yet it accounts for 31 percent of the mass shootings. Why do you think that is, Mr. Shioi?

The strongest indicator is the relationship that firearm ownership has with mass shootings. America leads the world in gun ownership. More guns equals more shootings. And more assault weapons equals more mass shootings. It’s really pretty simple, Stephen, so it shouldn’t be too hard for you to understand that if you reduce the number of guns (especially assault-style weapons), mass shootings would likely be reduced. And fewer families would be left grieving.

Had we had gun control in place earlier, it might have prevented the likes of George Hennard, Gian Ferri, Colin Ferguson, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, Byran Uyesugi, Michael McDermott, Doug Williams, Jeffrey Weise, Seung-hui Cho, Robert Hawkins, Jiverly Voong, Nidal Malik Hasan, Omar Thornton, Jared Loughner, Scott Dekraai, James Holmes, Wade Michael Page, Adam Lanza, Aaron Alexis, Dylann Roof, Christopher Sean Harper-Mercer and Omar Mateen from carrying out their unspeakable acts of horror.

Steven McMacken

Lihue