June 1 Letters to the Editor: Our Readers’ Opinions

Nobody’s perfect

I wanted to take a moment to congratulate Lori McCann on her appointment to the Legislature. Whatever else McCann may do, I think we can count on her not assaulting the female interns.

I have known McCann for many years through her involvement in the legal system. I have always seen her as a quiet-spoken and reasonable person who does her job and helps others. So I think she will do a good job as long as she can keep in mind that she is not obligated to line up with the total crazies in the Legislature. So, good luck, Lori.

Of course, I can parenthetically add that I never knew McCann was a Republican. Saints forfend.

Oh well, none of us is perfect.

Danny Radakovich

Lewiston

Gun decision brought death

Marc Johnson’s May 14 commentary concludes: (The) “ ... money ginned up by gun manufacturers and gullible Americans who have bought the fiction that any restrictions on guns is tantamount to a commie plot has made the Republican Party a wholly owned subsidiary of the NRA.”

Is Johnson’s conclusion possible? Consider the Supreme Court’s 2008 Heller Second Amendment decision. Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority knew little about militia’s role in the Revolution. In the Carolinas, militias fought hard under Gen. Nathanael Greene. They destroyed the local loyalist militias, kept the patriot army supplied and starved and fought the British Army. Militias and regular colonial army soldiers were the people of the Second Amendment.

Scalia’s majority opinion stated that “bear arms” in no way connotes participation in structured military action. The amendment was intended to protect an individual’s right to possess firearms for self and family protection.”

In his minority opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens believed that the NRA Republican justices’ conclusion that the Constitution writers meant individual’s gun rights was a “preposterous fraud.” Stevens called Heller “the worst decision of my tenure. ... Throughout most of American history, there was no federal objection to laws regulating civilian use of firearms.”

It appears that many violent criminals’ gun rights have not been infringed. As a result, however, many citizens have suffered, or worse, died from gunshots.

One can only hope that Johnson’s “commie plot” succeeds and reduces gun deaths and violence. The NRA-owned Republicans will cry “constitutional infringement,” which, of course, will be a lie.

Leonard Ross

Clarkston

No time for complacency

This is in response to Charlotte Omoto’s May 23 letter.

Given the increasing fluctuation in COVID-19 statistics now, I understand the facts I share as I am writing could be much different than when this letter is published, like Omoto’s letter when she wrote it and when it was published. Moreover, it is hard to compare the data of one county in one state and another county in another state since neither state shares the same information.

However, there are two corrections I want to make:

1) As of May 23, the Whitman County Health District and Public Health – Idaho North Central District place both Whitman County and Latah County in the moderate risk range, respectively.

2) Even through Whitman County is in the moderate risk range, this is no time to be complacent. If we treat the communities in Whitman County as if they each had 100,000 people in the last 14 days, the highest rates of infection would be Lamont (1,754); Endicott (987) and Farmington (800). Even Colfax (558) is higher than Pullman (95).

You can’t say those college students had anything to do with those rates. Unfortunately, I cannot find similar statistics for Latah County. But I bet the rates in its outlying communities would be close.

In other words, be safe wherever you go: Mask up, wash hands and social distance. But if you are vaccinated, you should be OK.

Wayne Beebe

Pullman

Volcano claim inaccurate

According to Gary Willson’s May 23 letter, “One volcano emits more carbon in one day than the whole world produces in three years.”

A quick Google search for “volcanos and carbon” yielded many articles that overwhelmingly contradict that claim.

For example, one in the Earth Talk section of Scientific American states: “Greenhouse gas emissions from volcanoes comprise less than 1 percent of those generated by today’s human endeavors.”

Bill Lipe

Moscow