Armed citizens play important role
Tom Koenninger’s April 28 opinion column, “No need to brandish guns in public,” is poorly argued. His basic premise should have been that the law in Washington state allows open carriage of firearms. If you don’t like the law, then change it.
I have a concealed weapons permit and have carried a firearm openly. Yet never have I done so for “intimidation” or to “nourish a superiority complex.” I have done so simply to protect my family and myself. While I have all the confidence and respect in the world for the outstanding people of the Vancouver Police Department, I recognize that a lack of proper funding has limited their capability to be everywhere at once and to respond instantly. Until I can have my own personal armed police officer riding in the car with my family or stationed on every block, I’ll continue to carry a firearm.
Koenninger claims guns have no public role in the lives of ordinary, law-abiding citizens. I thank the Lord that they did and do have a role and have changed our society for the better — for a right unexercised is a right lost.
Jeremy Baenen
Vancouver
Jarring to see any armed stranger
I continue to not get it regarding the open-carry issue and why a few people, like Tom Stokes (May 3 letter, “Being armed removes risk of force”), seem to consider doing so a defining act of personal security.
I can tell you that seeing some stranger packing a weapon wouldn’t make me feel secure, and I bet I have a lot of company.
I sincerely think that all this garbage about open carry is going to result in drawing gun ownership just one step closer to gun laws that really restrict. I never thought I would say this, but maybe it’s about time: Some people seem to want to keep pushing until the push back really hurts.
John Salsbury
Vancouver
Opinion injected into reporting
In the April 30 Columbian story, “Rossi under attack as he mulls Senate bid,” AP reporter Curt Woodward stated, “The dustup previews a bruising fall campaign if Rossi enters the race, and reveals how nervous Democrats are about the prospect of a challenge from the former state senator.” This statement is opinion, not fact. Is there research to back up his statement that Democrats are “nervous” about Rossi entering the Senate race? If Woodward cannot keep from injecting his personal beliefs, then his stories should be labeled as opinion. The Columbian has the responsibility to make sure that stories printed as news are not actually opinion. Please, editors, help keep the Fourth Estate valid.
Donald W. Smith
Battle Ground
Attend to people first
BPA should stand for B = Better, P = People, A = Attention. Priority, lack of foresight, wishful thinking, and excuses relating to money are not acceptable excuses for the power line controversy. If money is the only concern, progress will never happen. History will to repeat itself. We are taught to save money for the future. That’s good behavior. But to cry out that money is the only defense against human sacrifice is backward behavior.
Forty years of no change is not to be applauded. Change has caught up to the BPA and has it prepared for this change? The answer is no, because money cannot be in command of human dignity. BPA provides a service, not a legal pile driver that pervades avenues of negative results. People first. Money is not to be in command when human respect is the guiding light.
Bert A. Coffman
Vancouver
Not all questions require answering
I was recently contacted by a medical center to gather information prior to a procedure to be done on an outpatient basis. I was asked the usual questions about insurance. However, I was also asked several personal questions about my ethnicity, etc. These questions were not necessary. When I found out that I had the right to decline answering, I asked why I was not told that initially.
I was told that, once I say I don’t want to answer, then the representative will stop asking. But I was not told from the beginning that I had the option to decline to answer. I find this very deceptive. How many patients answer these types of questions believing that they must? Representatives calling from the medical centers should state upfront that these questions are optional.
Susana Serna
Vancouver
Take Hillary’s advice
They are among us and their numbers are legion. They drink from the cauldron of malice before taking their zealous protestations to the streets. But now, with their 50-year exclusive dominion over such assemblages threatened, the wild eyed ideologues of the left plot to sabotage the upstart Tea Party movement.
Since the left itself is virtually immune from sabotage, it’s good strategy. How can groups that make hateful and threatening signs and speeches, burn people in effigy, wave foreign but burn American flags, destroy businesses, spike trees and raze equipment at logging sites, torch “environmentally unfriendly” cars and homes that encroach — in their estimation — on ecologically sensitive areas, etc., and be presented in a way so loathsome that it would bring disgrace and discredit upon them?
Hillary Clinton was not speaking about the Tea Party or the Obama administration when, in a 2003 speech, she screeched, “I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic. We should stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration.” Her words ring much truer today than they ever did in 2003.
Pat McCarty
Woodland
Develop motivation to eat healthy
Childhood obesity is a serious and growing health problem in America today. As shown on the Lifetime program, “The Balancing Act,” in the past three decades the obesity rates in children have nearly doubled. It is necessary all public schools begin serving more nutritious meals to our children from the beginning of the school years. Extra focus, education and motivation must be onset in the early years of childhood to help our children avoid this deadly condition.
If our nation does not improve access to healthful food and help young people develop healthy eating habits early in life, we’re going to see more people in the doctor’s office. Public school is the beginning of most our children’s education; we must make it count when the time is most vital in their lives. These children are shaping the future for not only themselves and their families, but for the future of our country as well.
