Correspondence

Friends at CNN, first off, I’m a Constitution voter. Additionally, I’m a former elected Texas county sheriff. I dropped my NRA membership 30 years ago. I now write historical fiction and journal articles.

My response to your day, July 20, 2011: Piers, you successfully shut off an invited guest who had a differing opinion. That’s bad form. The man seemed to have had a point. You should have him back and let him have his say. Either that or drop the fair-and-equal farce.

Inflamed rhetoric has caused many a catastrophe. Read your ancient Greek history for graphic examples.

I propose that had there been a “licensed-to-carry” individual inside the theater at Aurora, and the person had any guts at all, he or she could have stopped the massacre in short order. I can hear you thinking, “with all that bullet-proof gear on”? Right? Yes! Yes indeed.

In my officer days I knew cops who were shot and killed (Chuck Renfro, Sammy Charles Long) and others that had been saved by vests. All the latter said that being hit by a bullet in the vest “hurt like hell.” What is that if not a distraction? What is a distraction if not an opportunity to attack the perpetrator with “main,” or physical, force. I’ll bet that if just one man, or woman for that matter, had gone after the coward, others would have followed suit and he would have succumbed early on. The way he did when approached by police.

A trained shooter could have shot the perpetrator in the face or any other exposed part of his body and brought the affair to an end. But no, everyone just ran, like a startled flock of sheep. Exactly like people will in nations who have given up their guns and expect the cavalry to rescue them in the event of trouble. (The sheep metaphor fits well here.) Trouble with the let-the-cops-take-care-of-it crowd is that innocent victims get killed before any troops arrive. The way they did the other night in Aurora, Colorado, “only” 90 seconds too late.

I don’t need to quote the Second Amendment here. I will remind Piers that the United States Constitution says nothing like your quote about “in their homes.” It says, “…shall not be infringed….”

Oh yes. Piers, the members of the Supreme Court are not the Framers of the Constitution. As time has passed they appear to be more and more just surrogate politicos.

Here’s Christopher Hitchens on “Guns”: “Alas for the advocates of ‘gun control,’ the Second Amendment seems to enshrine a ‘right of the people to keep and bear arms’ irrespective of whether they are militia or not.” (See Hitch-22 (New York: Twelve, 2010), 252.)

Militia, definitions:

1. Merriam Webster’s Deluxe Dictionary, Tenth College Ed.: militia, n. 2. “The whole body of able-bodied male citizens declared by law as being subject to call to military

services.”

2. The American Heritage College Dictionary, Third Ed: militia, n. 1. “An army of ordinary citizens.”

Americans are not about to give up their Second Amendment Rights! Statutory law or no!

Glenn Willeford, M.A. (history)

Big Bend

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‘The Sage of Somalia’ may as well be writing about the United States when he talks about his nation drowning in its own calamities – see the article by the same title in the July 2012 of ‘The Progressive.’ He says that the failures of Somalia have now piled so high that his imagination can’t contain them.

I feel much the same as Nurudin Farah – The Sage of Somalia.

The United States is on a journey that can only to lead to calamity and ruin. Like Somalia, our calamities have become so complex as to obscure their reality and to disable the average citizen to bring them into focus.

I don’t know about Somalia but the pervasive complacency in the United States has led to a degree of ignorance that tolerates a ‘political’ Supreme Court and it’s extremely dangerous ruling -‘Citizens United’ – and a divisive and failed Congress.

It is the complacency and ignorance of the American electorate that has led us to this point. This is the goat head in my shoe.

I have looked closer at the population distribution of Texas and I would not carve the state into five pieces. I would divide it into two pieces, east to west, at the 100th meridian.

I urge you to look at a map of the population distribution of the United States, particularly Texas and seethe dramatic difference east to west. It reminds me of the U.S. Senate – which I would abolish – wherein small populous western states have equal representation as the most populous states in the country.

Finally, to have elected a man of the caliber of Rick Perry for more than one term makes me believe that Texas is a microcosm of the United States with regard to complacency and ignorance.

Ken Whitley

Marfa

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Law abiding citizens who obey the law, have a great help to protect themselves, the second amendment. Our sympathies go out to those families that have lost loved ones in this recent shooting. But now, you have idiots like Bloomberg and Rahm Emanuel, yelling, “Get rid of guns”, after the shooting at Aurora, Colorado. The same idiots yell the same thing after every shooting.

Illinois has the most strenuous gun laws in America. Look at the death rate and gang violence. Why? Because as the old saying goes, “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.” Mexico has a gun ban. Just look at what’s going on there with the drug cartels and crooks. It is so stupid to think, if we get rid of guns everything will be hunky dory. NO WAY!

To get rid of guns would only make law-abiding citizens targets for crooks, gang members, drug cartels and so forth. Because you can bet your bottom, “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns”. We will be victims, sitting ducks or whatever you want to call it. The law-abiding citizen is not going to be your problem. The people who break the law and don’t care jack s _ _ t about laws, will surely be your problem. They will get guns if you have a ban or if you don’t. Mexico has a gun ban. You see how it worked for them.

People will kill people anyway they can, if that’s what they want to do. It’s been going on at least since Cain killed Abel. The Bible doesn’t say what was used, but you can bet it wasn’t a gun. There are rocks, clubs and knives you name it. Taking guns away from honest citizens won’t settle anything, except to make us easier targets and to create more victims. Because crooks, gangs and the drug cartels not only already have guns, but they will always have guns, because they will always be able to get them. And you’re crazy or don’t live in the same world, if you don’t know this.

Like I say, Mexico has a gun ban. It’s really working well for them, isn’t it?

Illinois has the most strenuous gun ban they can get, but the gangs are taking over. Chicago has one of the highest death rates in the nation. I wonder how many gang members bought their guns legally? Do you really think a gun ban would keep those thugs from getting guns? If so, you live in a dream world.

How long do you think it would take the Mexican drug cartels to move right across the border if guns are banned in Texas and other border states? Who could oppose them? Don’t you think New York and Illinois have local and state police? Boy, they really have things under control, don’t they?

Some people live in a dream world, where everyone will follow the law. Wake up and get real. You live in a world where everything is going to hell. Aurora, Colorado is just another example of many of the last few years. But Mexico has a gun ban. Think about that.

Janice Jones

Fort Davis