Gun owners are responsible for their weapons
About school shootings — where do the guns come from? I suspect from the parents or a friend or relative, or stolen, or bought on the street. So, in part, I blame the gun owners. If you own a gun that is used, you are part of the reason and hold some blame for the deaths and injuries. Thus, as a gun owner, it is your responsibility to make sure no one except you can gain access to it.
I understand teenagers are clever about stealing and figuring out where you might keep it, but it is your responsibility to find a way to be ahead of them, or don’t own a gun.
This is true even if you don’t have kids because a stranger or neighbor kid could and would be willing to steal your gun. Everyone who owns a gun is responsible, period. If your gun is used in a shooting, or a crime or ends up in the wrong hands you, as the owner — with rare exceptions — are a large part of the blame.
No matter how safe you think your gun is, please make it safer today. I am not against gun ownership or hunting, but I insist on much better responsibility
Kathy E Wilson,
Brunswick
Free speech pushes US into divisiveness
Maybe Freedom of Speech and of the Press in our time has become a liability and danger to our very Democracy. How ironic that it may be our Achilles heel.
We have gone, over the decades, from newspapers, radio and three television networks that “reported” the news to a multitude of cable outlets, Facebook and social media that make, spin and sensationalize the news. Foreign actors and our enemies are even involved. Bad news is everywhere and good news is marginalized. We no longer know what is true or false. Conspiracy theories abound and are believed by many.
Recent polls show President Biden’s popularity is falling. Even mainstream liberal news downplays his efforts to pass positive legislation through a divided Senate with two Democrats seemingly in the wrong party. Take over of both houses by the Republicans in the mid-terms is already predicted.
Homelessness and drug addiction is rampant in our country. Child hunger, affordable housing and the environment need immediate solutions. Wealth inequality continues to expand as the middle class disappears. Doing anything about these issues is assailed by the right as socialism. Voters complain that nothing is getting done yet they don’t want taxes raised, even on the wealthy, to pay for anything.
Are polls suggesting that voters want a repeat of 2017-2020 and the end of our Democracy? Trump promised many things like improved infrastructure and medical care and delivered on neither. He cut taxes, strengthened the Plutocracy and alienated us with our allies. Then there was the attempted coup. Biden is trying to remedy those mistakes, around the “Republican Blockade” with his popularity dropping even though he has been in office for less than a year.
America is in a “State of Information Confusion” where black is white and white is black and grey no longer exists. Our free speech rights, pervasive free press and media sources are continually pushing this country into a divisive state of bewilderment and irrationality. As we fracture and disintegrate, our adversaries rejoice and wait for our Democracy to collapse.
Jeffrey Runyon,
Brunswick
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