It would be safer if everyone had a firearm
Editor:
Bad guys kill children, so why encourage them?
I find it sadly fascinating that enraged gun-ban proponents want to stop gun-toting maniacs from killing children by disarming their defenders. They assume that by banning all guns, those bad guys won’t have them.
The good guys far outnumber the gun-shooting bad ones, which are an extremely small part of the populace. Bad people don’t obey laws, and not only that, successfully create ways to bypass them. It’s kinda their thing.
The good news is that bad people really shy away from well-defended good guys. And, inversely, the bad news is that they are strongly attracted to the poorly defended ones.
So why isn’t there a call to arms? One safe, well-trained teacher — just one citizen — with a legal small pistol, could have saved 20 children, a mall and a theater full of people.
Armed citizens stop far more crimes than the police and are there at the exact time needed to stop them. Crimes with guns went through the ceiling when places like Australia were disarmed. And it’s almost zero in Switzerland where everyone is armed.
The stats and logic are overwhelming that bad guys hate gun-toting good guys and avoid them. But, oh yeah, logic doesn’t live here. Never mind. Emotionally derived conclusions always fail their goal.
Bad guys will always be among us, no matter what the laws. Ask any survivor of one of these horrible scenes, or every gun banner, what they would have done had they had a gun.
Mark Kline
Idaho Springs
We must take responsibility
for low-income people
Editor:
Idaho Springs Police Chief David Wohlers’ comments in a recent Courant exude the modesty of truth while refraining, appropriately, from the attachment of any moral or ethical connotation.
Specifically, in commenting upon the skirmish involving businesspeople and youths in Citizens Park, Chief Wohlers reports our community suffers from a disproportionally high rate of crime. He laments that our relatively large population of low-income people accounts for the lion’s share of crime in the city and county.
Thank you, Chief Wohlers, for marshaling attention to the root of all evil in Clear Creek County. You could not have made these public comments at a more appropriate time, with two new county commissioners set to establish desperately needed reforms for our mountain community.
Expanding upon his remarks, it is important for us, as a village, to understand low-income people are no more predisposed to unlawfulness as anyone else. They put their pants on one leg at a time like everyone else.
However, when a person is no longer able to provide for him/herself or their family, desperation for food, medicine, clothing, transportation and shelter can compel one to break the law.
It also is well established that low-income folks make ideal targets for law enforcement. They tend to stand out from the rest of the community, and they have few, if any, means by which to assemble a reasonable defense when charged with criminal offenses. Conviction rates are the name of the game for officers, commanders, detectives, district attorneys and judges seeking promotion or re-election. As such, lower-class people fit the bill when only a plea bargain can be obtained from an overworked and underpaid public defender.
Reforms are desperately needed to reverse the centuries-old practice in the United States of targeting the poor, en masse, for incarceration. Those reforms must begin locally if we have any expectation of our federal government addressing these issues. Our county needs to be far more aggressive in attracting sustainable development that provides large-scale, living wages.
Urban renewal of dilapidated housing is long overdue. Substantial increases in educational funding are needed to produce future generations capable of self-support. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, broad-scale legal reforms are needed to provide safety nets for those in need.
Our imprisonment culture is surpassed by none globally as we incarcerate a greater percentage of our populace compared with any other nation.
The poor languish in detention, unable to secure bail before trial, thus losing whatever marginal employment they once had. Affordable, effective criminal defense is almost non-existent for low-income people. Once convicted, they have virtually no means of appeal and their criminal records, despite “serving their time,” hound them until death, thus preventing any reasonable chance at a decent job. Rapid descents into drug abuse, alcoholism and homelessness are almost guaranteed to ensue.
These are the challenges we face as a community, and with any luck, future County Commissioners Buckland and Hayden will focus on quality-of-life issues for everyone, not just the well-to-do.
David Stahl
Idaho Springs
Republicans should stop
protecting the wealthy
Editor:
I am tired of hearing Speaker of the House John Boehner blaming President Obama for not cooperating on tax legislation that will prevent the fiscal cliff from happening when it is the Republican congressmen who are protecting the most wealthy from paying their fair share of the deficit run up by the Republicans in the Bush years. Columnist Jerry Fabyanic outlined that subject last week.
It is time that those Republican congressmen are reminded that they are supposed to represent everyone in the country, not just the most wealthy. And I don’t want to hear the response that taxing at this time will cost jobs.
The wealthy do not invest their money with jobs in mind. They invest their money where they think they will get the biggest return. If that is on the other side of the world, then that is where they will put their money.
In fact, one reputable news source just reported that the wealthy are already sending their money out of the country to protect it from taxes. My suggestion is that the owners should be sent out of the country with their money and not be allowed to return until they are ready to pay their share.
No one earns the income that these people are collecting. Most inherited the money. Then they have their tax accountants and investment advisers make the investment decisions for them.
Several new books have been written on why our country has found itself with this imbalance of finances. Two of them are “The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism” and “Parties vs. the People.”
Some people have so much money that they are able to affect the news we hear and see, and even who will represent us in our government. Maybe Speaker Boehner should read some books on the subject, or at least develop a more closely attuned conscience.
Grace Todd
Idaho Springs