Water crisis
One helpful action would be to legislate that all new housing and building construction have rainwater collection systems for irrigation and graywater uses. The small extra construction costs can be passed on to the buyer. For installation in existing homes, a government largesse program such as the "Green New Deal" would be helpful. I don't know why something like this has not been done years ago, given the impending doomsday scenario.
Gerry Coorssen
Oro Valley
Congratulations, #45!
I want to be the first person to congratulate the former POTUS. He will be placed into The Guinness Book of World Records again! The first time was for a United States president that has been impeached not once, but twice. Now he will have an entry for making him the first former U.S. president to be indicted and face a criminal charge. He will have to change his red ball caps from MAGA to MIGA, Make Indictments Great Again.
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Max LaPlante
Southeast side
Gun violence
Re: the March 24 letter "Gun violence."
My response to this letter is, so now "good guys" should have guns and every U.S. citizen should be "required" to own a gun! May I sadly remind this writer that he should work in the field of mental health for a couple years. Try going into the home of a person reported to us about seeing bears and owning a gun. When the mother of this teacher called, we made an emergency visit to confirm the paranoia, leave an Rx for an antipsychotic as well as the business card of the nearby community mental health clinic.
There are too many persons who are not only mentally disturbed, but also use illegal substances and or alcohol to be requiring them to own guns. Then there are parents who willingly let children and teens have access to and even have unsupervised play with guns.
I say, good luck and may God save us all!
Janice Campos
Foothills
Amend the Constitution
Re: the March 30 article "We should change the Second Amendment."
The Opinion writer, Michael A. Chihak, has well researched his piece. I’m quite sure he knows that there are two ways to amend the Constitution, a vote by two-thirds of both houses of Congress and ratification of three-fourths of the states, a high hurdle, or a constitutional convention which has never happened and probably never should.
I agree with most of his points to amend and would accept them if that was what the majority supported. Personally, I would favor a well-regulated militia, being the National Guard, and gun ownership restricted to members who might be required to register their personal weapons with the Guard. This information would not be available to the rest of the government. I say this being a gun owner and former collector. The Constitution was written with an understanding that times change. Indeed, they have.
Joe Thompson
Northeast side
Second Amendment
Re: the March 30 article "We should change the Second Amendment."
As a gun owner who supports more laws to keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people, I was nevertheless appalled at Michael Chihak's ignorance of firearms. Going by his broad-stroked, fear-fed suggestions, owners such as I would be limited to weapons that fire no more than a single round at a time. Eliminating "all" semi-automatic weapons would mean confiscating the vast majority of legally held handguns in the country — handguns that are used tens of thousands of times each year to defend life and property. It's no wonder gun owners are so leery of new laws when people such as Mr. Chihak claim the authority to decide what those laws should be.
Jonathan Hanson
Midtown
Donald Trump
It’s a shame Americans cannot stand up to bullies. Donald Trump is showing his fear of “finally” facing consequences of his actions so he must invite his followers to do his dirty work.
It’s disappointing that his actions haven’t solidified our country against a tyrant. God help us! Think about our country, liberties and free speech that we have always enjoyed. Every Democrat, Republican and Independent needs to soul search for what we all would like to have our life be like. Being a “thug” or “mobster” is not what we want to embrace. So very sad!
Mary Beth Schneider
East side
Rights and safety
Re: the March 27 article "Bike laws in Tucson."
The letter writer claims bicyclists have the statutory right to ride in the automobile lane and not use the bike lane provided for them, when no bike lane is available single file riding makes even more sense. If there is a bike lane and riders choose not to use it and ride side by side in the auto lane, the letter writer states they have the statutory right to ride in the auto lane. Tucson drivers are then to wait behind the cycles. Good luck with that! If there is a statute, that makes it legal for bicycle riders to not use bike lanes and ride side by side to push cars out of their lane to pass. You have a decision to make. Are you going to ride as safely as possible, or are you going to exercise your statutory rights and ride in an unsafe manner?
Richard Bechtold
West side
Life in prison
Re: the March 29 article "Hobbs: Scheduled execution is unlikely next week."
The Arizona governor has it exactly right to pause the state on the death penalty. The more time we spend studying it, the closer we will come to stopping something that doesn't work. Designed for the "worst of the worst?" The worst prisoners in Arizona are not on death row, they're in the general population. I've met three men who lived on Arizona's death row. I met them as free men because I never committed murder and neither did they. The death penalty is so expensive because taxpayers pay for both the prosecution and the defense, and we pay judges more than we pay wardens. Lawyers are paid more than prison guards.
Endless appeals? No Arizona prisoner has received more appeals than the Constitution and the law allows. Stop with the rhetoric. Arizona has had life in prison without any possibility of parole for years. Just use it.
John Yoakum
Midtown
Nashville shooting
They were just 9 years old.
Donald Plummer
Northwest side
Public schools
Re: the March 29 letter "Priorities for education."
The letter states that private and charter schools overall provide a better education than public schools. That could be true but since private and charter schools don't have to adhere to public school guidelines such as standardized testing, there is no credible data for comparison.
Another thing making it difficult for comparison is that private and charter schools can be selective in student admissions while public schools are required by law to admit all school-age children regardless of their background, economic circumstances or level of academic achievement.
Let's make testing and admission requirements the same for public and private / charter schools. Then we can make an accurate comparison.
Tony Banks
Oro Valley
Stranger in a strange land
Banning books, taking back child labor laws, letting children and families go hungry, denying medical care or driving people into bankruptcy to pay for it, limiting the right to vote, denying women control of their bodies, allowing anyone to brandish assault weapons whenever and wherever they choose: This is not the Third World, but the United States of America, and I find it increasingly difficult to recognize it and certainly hard to be proud of it.
Penelope Van Amburg
Northeast side
Sam Hughes fence
Re: the March 27 letter "School Safety."
If the letter writer and the surrounding neighborhood are unhappy with the planned fence at Sam Hughes Elementary they might consider raising the funds to cover the cost of their choice and acceptable to TUSD. We faced a very similar situation a few years ago in Houston, Texas involving a school in a historic district. The neighborhood came together and in cooperation with the Houston Independent School District (HISD), raised the funds to cover the difference between the HISD budget for fencing and the cost of a better, taller, more attractive fence that complemented the architecture of the school and surrounding houses.
Arthur Mournian
Green Valley
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