Letters to the editor for Sunday, Oct. 15, 2017

Carson man pays tribute to firefighter for bravery in Vegas shooting

Through the power of Facebook I found my hero. I sent this post to Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles and to the Los Angeles Fire Department. One of the assistant fire chiefs called me to ensure me that Michael will receive the recognition he deserves.

“Mayor, my name is Scott Moreland. I live in Carson City, Nevada. I and my wife were at the Route 91 concert last night in Las Vegas. You have a LAFD hero named Michael Mandahl who was at the event. We were hunkered down during the shooting. Michael Mandahl dove under the bleachers with my wife and me with his girlfriend. He kept saying that he had to go help. He placed the care of his girlfriend with us and walked into the heat of battle. He left with nothing but blue jeans, boots and T-shirt to protect himself. While others were running away from the bullets hailing down on us all, Michael Mandahl ran into the hailstorm to help others. We were lucky to be reunited with this amazing young man before the night was over. He no longer had his belt or his T-shirt ... they were used to save people’s lives. Michael is an American hero who saved lives in Las Vegas on Oct. 1, 2017. Please honor this young man. The rest of the world demands it.”

Scott Moreland

Carson City

Way to track evil shooters

Our director of Homeland Security should ask chemical companies to offer an additive to gunpowder that can be tracked to set off an alarm when present in luggage, parcels, or on the person.

Michael J. Perna

Carson City

NFL protest shedding much-needed light on police brutality

There have been wide-ranging comments over the past weeks since during a campaign style rally the President made his “son of a bitch” statement aimed at Colin Kaepernick and other black athletes taking a knee during the national anthem to bring attention to police violence against African-Americans. That campaign statement has been followed by numerous damning tweets from @realDonaldTrump, subverting the gesture from a protest against violence to an act of unpatriotic disrespect of the flag.

Protests, by nature, make us uncomfortable. They might be loud or silent, violent or peaceful. Sit-ins, letter writing, street marches, draft card burning, self-burning, and other acts of self-immolation have all been used to bring attention to different causes. Whether mundane or horrific, the intent of a protest is to make us aware and draw our attention to what the protester deems as a “wrong” that needs to be righted.

“Taking a knee” for a cause during the national anthem has offended or shocked many; they consider it amoral and so an affront to the USA that it is must to be quelled. However, simply dismissing the protest as unpatriotic is “shooting the messenger” and ignores the grievance (police violence against African-Americans). Does a young black teen playing in a park with a pellet gun deserve to die? Does a black man complying with an officer’s request for ID deserve to die? There are many other instances that can be cited.

The issue of police violence against African-Americans deserves discussion. To ignore it is to ignore a large portion of our citizens. That would be — unpatriotic!

Harvey Edwards

Carson City

Second Amendment important protection against tyranny

The gun control debate centers on why American should be allowed to own guns. The liberals have framed the argument in terms of self-defense, but that is a false premise.

The prime reason our revolutionary forefathers put the Second Amendment in the Constitution was simple: It allows us to shoot at the government. It is a tacit admission that we have the right to revolt, as they did, and they gave us the means to effectuate that right in the Second Amendment.

The reason to own firearms is to preserve our liberty, not primarily to shoot burglars. We should be able to own machine guns because the government owns machine guns.

If the Second Amendment is read without assumptions piled on it, it says keep and bear arms, not keep and bear rifles. If read without limitations, it would allow citizens to keep cannons; thus, common sense tells us owning rapid-fire rifles and sidearms would be well within the Second Amendment.

The right to revolt against the government carries with it the right to have firearms to fight the government, and the Second Amendment clearly provides the ownership of the means needed to resist tyranny.

Alan Dale Daniel

Dayton

‘God is great, beer is good and people are crazy’

I am a veteran. I am offended if anyone disrespects my county, national anthem and flag. Colin Kaepernick’s method of protesting is sad, but I can understand the why of it and what he was trying to project, but that has been lost in translation. Firing a person for exercising his rights under the Constitution is just plain wrong. If people and the media would stop the hype over it, the whole thing would die a slow death. Focus on something like the opioid epidemic or seek out the mentally ill to keep guns from them and turn our cities into killing fields like the recent tragedy in Las Vegas. People kill people; not guns.

As for POTUS? Guy Farmer had a good assessment of Trump’s character: Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Name-calling and idiotic remarks to an unstable dictator of North Korea was the ultimate closed mind and open mouth syndrome. Trump calls the dictator “Rocket Man.” If a war starts between those two, what would we call the POTUS? Push-button man?

The Constitution says this country is a government for the people and by the people. The politicians spend our money on vacations and the like and no one seems to be doing a good job governing. The hurricane ravaged islands need help, not stupid remarks from the Commander in Chief. The government is doing something but not enough.

I will keep using my right to protest in my hometown newspaper against what I feel is not right. Like the song says: “God is great, beer is good and people are crazy.”

Phyllis Skamel

Carson City