Nothing will change
With regard to our Republican representatives in the House voting against tougher gun policies, let me say this: You keep doing the same thing, you get the same results and nothing changes till you change!
Mental illness or anger may be the motive for killing, but guns and ammunition are enablers. Forget the NRA; grow a moral backbone. You can't prevent all killings, but you can lessen the damage. You can't get all the killing machines off the streets immediately, but you have to start sometime. Now is the time.
BILL BOND
Benton
Reaping whirlwind
We the sheeple have sown the wind and we are reaping the whirlwind that God promised. Historically, I believe world-leading nations have fallen in a three-step approach defined by God in the book of Romans. The U.S. is on schedule. Step one is a sexual revolution (the '60s). Step two is a homosexual revolution ('70s-present) embraced by the government. Step three is a reprobate mind prevailing in the land, meaning leaders and followers cannot think straight. This is where America is now.
Look at the immoral decisions coming out of Washington, our courts and states and cities. Lawbreakers storm the border with impunity, we defund the police, release criminals to kill again and we still kill some 3,000 babies a day in mothers' wombs, teach genderism and family breakdown. I believe these are only symptoms of the real problem. America has walked away from the authority of God's word. And we are reaping the immoral whirlwind.
The solution? Churches and pastors, do your job. Preach the whole counsel of God. Call sin what it is: a violation of God's clear teaching. Quit teaching children they are just lucky animals. Put the Ten Commandments back on school walls. Give young minds a chance to be impacted by God's truth before they get twisted at state indoctrination centers ... oops, schools.
God charged parents (fathers especially) and grandparents with educating their children. And many have been AWOL. Get in the game. Please. The state of Virginia's parents got involved and they won. We can too!
BOB WARNER
Hot Springs Village
Someone else's pocket
A while back, I bought some gasoline. The price was $4.50/gallon. That was about $2 higher than it was the day before Putin invaded Ukraine. Since the gasoline I bought was probably sitting in a storage tank somewhere at the time of the invasion, and the owner would have been happy to get $2.50/gallon, something seems wrong.
I understand that this $2 increase in price is "necessary to allocate the available supply." I also understand that with every gallon of gas I bought, $2 of my money went into somebody else's pocket. Why do I have to pay for the process "necessary to allocate the available supply" and the owner of the gasoline does not? Oh yeah. I remember. It's the Wizard of Id's Golden Rule. "The one who has the gold makes the rules."
LEN WHITE
Fayetteville
Dishonor will remain
We've got the best legislators that money can buy, and it's becoming more evident by the day that the NRA has them paid for. Republicans have enabled the seeding of this country with guns plentiful as deer ticks. And that was done while they sowed distrust of the government without reason. The courts have been corrupted by them at many levels, being occupied by party loyalists, the Constitution be damned.
Then we have the "evangelical Christians" who want the respectability of Christ's name but follow the one they really revere, named Donald Trump. We are about to coronate one of them as the next governor who surely knows the teachings of Jesus, but gives her first loyalty to Trump. The book says, "By their fruits shall ye know them." Her enabling Trump's Big Lie and still calling herself a Christian is despicable.
There used to be Republicans I and many more respected because they earned that respect. You would not have found them accepting the autocratic fascism of Donald Trump or overlooking his complicity in the attempted insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021. Like Liz Cheney said from her position on the committee, "I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible. There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain."
I'm past 80 now, but still have memories of military buddies who died defending the democracy of this country that you lowlifes are endangering. I spent time in a military hospital but got to come home alive. I and a lot of other old veterans view the lot of you with disdain and as a national disgrace. Yet I can't help but wonder if any of you'd view the sensible gun rules differently if you'd had a child killed by one of those "Second Amendment heroes" you don't want to inconvenience in his ability to wreak carnage on the innocent.
KARL HANSEN
Hensley