All for naught
I understand several downtown Lewiston businesses had a problem with all the “cosplaytriots” parading around in a show of force for their “God-given Second Amendment rights” with their shiny new “Super Bang-Bang 9000” rifles and pistols during the weekend, “guarding” said businesses from “certain violence.”
I also understand said businesses have taken their complaints to the city council after the fact.
Gee — if only there were some way these businesses could have known Meal Team 6 were going to show up, and politely asked them not to do so.
While it is tragic that George Floyd lost his life at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department, and the subsequent violent protests elsewhere in our once-great nation, our quaint little burg didn’t need that stuff here.
All the fuss and bluster was for naught.
I can also promise you that those who scream the loudest about their First and Second amendment rights have never read the Constitution in its entirety.
Then again, if only there were some way they could have known.
Doug Graham
Lewiston
Worried about vigilantes
I am extremely concerned by the vigilantes who are taking it upon themselves to “protect” our communities from looting. ...
We should be leaving the important work of policing to a highly-trained police force. ...
When called to the scene of an emergency, our trained police officers have to make a split-second decision: Is the person I see with a gun ready to shoot? Is he a good guy or a bad guy?
In my many years as an attorney, ... I found some officers, instead of calming things down ... routinely escalated the emotions of citizens during encounters, the upshot of which was charges of resisting arrest — especially against our poor and black citizens.
We ask a lot of our police. On one hand, we want them to work as caring field social workers. On the other, we want them to have the courage to calmly put themselves into the line of fire. ...
I’m not advocating we deprive private citizens of the Second Amendment right to bear arms. Those rights, however, are best exercised when protecting our homes from intruders. Let’s leave the life-threatening role of responding to public emergencies to highly-trained, well-paid, courageous police officers.
I’m sure many of the vigilantes only want to “scare” out-of-control protesters from committing property crimes. Many probably can use a firearm judiciously. ...
Is it possible at least some of the vigilantes are itching for a chance to gun down a black protester for the simple act of throwing a brick?
Tim Gresback
Moscow
Chasing unicorns
I have always been a supporter of gun rights, ... but after the last few weeks and incidents with vigilante gun owners, I am starting to see things in a much different light.
I had a pistol pulled on myself, my minor child and elderly mother by a neighbor because my dogs got out last month.
Then on June 6, I was approached by another individual with a gun strapped to him that never was used as a threat or unholstered. But he did act as if he was some kind of law enforcement officer. He requested to come into my family’s home to “squash a rumor about his home being an Antifa club house.” Minutes later, police were sent to a friend’s home just two doors down because of the same stupid rumors. ...
I am not angry that you acted out of fear and decided to chase unicorns named Antifa, but you were supposed to be liberating Idaho and protecting Lewiston businesses. You came to the other side of the bridge to “squash a rumor” that could have gotten myself, my family and my friends killed. I do think we deserve an apology. ...
Why were businesses that did not want protection threatened? Why were citizens identified before entering their own homes. And did police really request this presence and back it? ...
I really would like to keep both my First Amendment and Second Amendment rights, so please go find your unicorns in big cities. ...
Melyssa Andrews
Clarkston
No one gets out
It is time to defund and disband the police departments in three cities: New York, Los Angeles and Minneapolis, just exactly as they are demanding.
Of course, without law enforcement, there will be no need for courts or jails, so they can be shut down and emptied, too.
These are sanctuary cities demanding social justice and they should have it. We could then empty every prison and jail in the country, and bus the occupants to these three cities to give them even more of what they’re asking for.
Finally, we could use the military to wall these cities in, while the “social justice” (Marxist) warriors burn them to the ground.
Then the Marxists and their “woke” liberal allies could run these sanctuary havens any way they want.
Anyone can get in but no one gets out.
J.C. Passmore
Elk City
