Letters to the Editor 01/30/2013

To the Editor:

Waldo Lake is NOT a good place to have seaplanes coming and going.

Lying high on the western slopes of the Oregon Cascades, it is one of the largest natural lakes in Oregon (9.8 square miles with a maximum depth of 427 feet). Waldo also has the distinction of being one of the purest lakes in the world, partly because it has no permanent inlet to bring nutrients into the lake for plant growth. The lack of plant life (and other pollutants) contributes to its purity, which allows one to see to depths of 120 feet on a calm day.

As an old-time airman with thousands of hours flying many types of aircraft, I can testify that one of the elements that causes pilots to prang their machines is the stall-spin phenomena that often follows not taking into consideration high-density-altitude operating conditions. An over-loaded seaplane operating from Waldo Lake - perched 5,414 feet above sea level - on a hot, summer day would be a wreck looking for a place to happen.

Even though the beautiful body of water is used for human recreation as we speak, internal combustion engines are not allowed, therefore, it is still a sensitive sub-alpine aquatic ecosystem operating well. All it will take to destroy the biological balance and purity it still has is for one piece of machinery that runs on fossil fuels to go to pieces in the lake and pollute it.

I thoroughly believe in the old saw, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." In that light, please keep internal combustion machinery of ALL kinds off of Waldo Lake.

Jim Anderson

•••

To the Editor:

Re: "Gun debate triggers spike in sales," (The Nugget, January 23, page 1):

The article is somewhat wrong on the Second Amendment.

The Founders in their wisdom, knew the arrogance of humans, and put the Second Amendment in as a protection against tyranny. They all understood that we the people must maintain a citizen militia of sorts in the event the government ever turned their armies on us. And while the home defense and hunting aspects of gun ownership certainly are there, I am convinced that the Second Amendment has always been about protecting us from our own government.

The Second Amendment has one purpose: to ensure that "we the people" can withstand a tyrannical government, for perhaps the first time in history. The writings of James Madison (Federalist #46), among others, make that abundantly clear.

Carlton Yee

•••

To the Editor:

As much as I respect Jim Williams for his thoughtful article, ("Gun debate triggers spike in sales," The Nugget, January 23, page 1),

he commits an error early on that is one of the principal issues in this debate:

"The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution protects the right of citizens to own a gun for the purposes of self-defense, within the

home."

He has redefined (or misunderstood) the purpose of the Second Amendment, from two perspectives. One, this was clearly not the founders' intent; and two, the two recent Supreme Court decisions (2008 and 2010) do nothing to narrow the founders intent, they merely rule on the specifics of the two cases in question, as he

points out.

In other words, the Heller vs. DC (2008) decision didn't say that the purpose of the Second Amendment was to provide the right for a citizen to keep a firearm in his home for self-defense; what it said is that Mr. Heller had that right under the Second Amendment to do that, because the argument from DC said he did not. Those aren't the same

thing.

If we want to know how to frame the discussion, we should at least understand and acknowledge why the Second Amendment is there, before we start suggesting why and in what ways, it isn't absolute.

David Opsahl