Letters to the Editor 01/09/2013

To the Editor:

There are somewhere between 250 and 300 million privately owned guns in the United States of America - one gun for three out of every four people in the country. There are over 25,000 gun-caused deaths each year in the USA. This number includes suicides (more than 15,000/year), homicides (more than 10,000/year) and accidental deaths.

In the United Kingdom there are around 4 million guns, less than one gun for every 15 people in the country. In the United Kingdom, civilians are not allowed to possess semi-automatic or automatic firearms, handguns or armor-piercing ammunition. In the UK, a country of 63 million people, the total number of gun-caused deaths is less than 200 annually. The total number of homicides by any method is less than 1,000 annually

The NRA tells us that guns don't kill people, people kill people. This is true, but clearly people with guns kill people in much greater numbers than people without guns do.

If we continue to interpret the Second Amendment to the Constitution the way the NRA does, to be an unrestricted right to manufacture and sell guns to whoever wants them, then we will have 25,000-plus gun deaths each year in this country. If we want to reduce the number of gun deaths, then we must dramatically reduce the number of guns in our society.

We have many rights in this country, but we seem to focus more on the right to keep and bear arms than the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

If we change from a Gun Culture to a Culture of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, then we will find ways of reducing the number of guns, and hence gun deaths, without infringing on people's 2nd Amendment rights.

We can do this by strictly regulating how and when guns and ammunition are sold (selling a gun is not a Constitutional right) and promoting an aggressive gun buy-back program where we create financial incentives to turn guns in to be destroyed.

We can thus reduce the overall supply of guns, and over time, reduce the number and scale of gun deaths, while our right to keep and bear arms is not infringed

Peter Bearzi

s s s

To the Editor:

Dear Ken, having read your missive to The Nugget I feel an urge to respond. You appear to be exhibiting a great rush of fervor in favor of the most current focus of the PC crowd. I am sure that you shall attract a coterie of followers who shall "feel" that they are on a holy crusade to make the world safe. Unfortunately, like most decisions made in the heat of a moment, no one looks at the long view and results of their actions.

As one of the few people extant who was in Agnews State Hospital, albeit as a cinematographer not an inmate, I saw what bedlam meant. I was affected by what I saw and thought that the closing was correct. I was 23 years old. I am close to 70 now and I have gained perspective. Agnews was a horror show, but - and it is a big but - Agnews served to protect the people of California at large, and the inhabitants' families in particular. You may have noticed that almost all mass killers start at home on the morning of their "day."

There are many decisions made by governments and peoples that are taken in the heat of a particular moment (some good - like America's entry in war in 1941; some bad - like the world's acquiescence to the Balfor Decision at the end of WWI) with the results unknown for decades. It has been 50 years since the closure of state mental hospitals. What seem to be the results? Jails full of people who should be in mental wards. Panicked family members going on TV to beg for help for their troubled (and often dangerous) children. Mental patients being released back into society from a jail system that knows how dangerous they are but is legally barred from keeping them interred.

We both know that I could go on, but your apparent dismissal of the mental hospital problem as relevant to today is a major indication of your "feeling." You are not the only person who can hang some letters at the end of your name, and if those that you so proudly wave are to mean anything, you should take up the currently un-PC, unpopular crusade to reestablish good mental health facilities that strive to cure, protect, and care for the mentally ill, their families and society at large.

Your mention of 30 years of practice without encountering any monsters is perhaps more of a comment on the communities you have chosen than on the world outside of family counseling. Go spend a month in the Deschutes County Jail. You might learn a great deal from and about the people who are warehoused there. They will let you know who is good, who is bad, who is crazy, who will protect you, and who to fear. Say little and listen a lot. You may learn that you are crusading at the scab and ignoring the disease. If those letters at the end of your name are to have any meaning they should be used to reinvigorate your profession - not lead another fools crusade.

F.C. Brennan, Cloverdale

s s s

To the Editor:

You'd think, with all the talented people here in Sisters, we could come up with ideas that will get this town back on its feet... so quit bitchin' and moanin' about what's not working and submit your ideas, no matter how crazy, to the chamber, the city council, The Nugget, to get the ball rolling.

Here's mine: I think we should make a film set in Sisters (maybe a Western back-to-the-future-reincarnation mystery). I'll bet among the pine trees and cow pies in and around Sisters there's likely to be enough retired and vacationing motion picture production people and actors who could put together an independent motion picture set in Sisters that could be shown at film festivals around the country. I'll even bet there's enough financial angels to help manifest such a project.

Send me an email and I'll get the group together to discuss possibilities.

Diane Goble, [email protected]

s s s

To the Editor:

Just visiting Sisters, a very nice town. I lived here 25 years ago for seven years.

Great town! It's winter, very cold but nice. My comment: the ice is everywhere - streets, sidewalks and parking lots. I went to a food store, walking 30 feet on solid ice. It was difficult. Driving on the roads - it was difficult.

My comment No. 2: A major road contractor recently had a contract, a grinding job, on Santiam Pass. Hundreds of tons of asphalt grindings are stored in the Sisters industrial area. The hundreds of tons of asphalt grindings are to be removed from Sisters this spring.

My comment No. 3: Why not take some of the hundreds of tons of asphalt grindings and put them on streets, sidewalks and parking lots? The grindings are free.

Mike Griesman

--- Note from Mike Griesman 1/10/2013: I spoke with Mr. Glenn Miller and he informed me that the asphalt grindings in the Sisters Industrial park are not free. I stand corrected. ---

s s s

To the Editor:

Thanks so much for putting the article in about my bird rehabilitation ("Local Bird rescue center strives for expansion," The Nugget, December 26, page xx).

I would love for folks to know the correct reason why grebes land on pavement. The caption for the photo stated that they land on pavement because they get disoriented.

It is quite rare that birds get disoriented (unless they are blown off course by a few hundred miles by a hurricane). However, they do mistake wet pavement for water, and if sick/weak and desperate to get out of the air, will make the mistake and land on our roads.

Elise Wolf, Grebe Acres