What to do next
OK. You're pregnant, single, a high school senior and 18 years old. What is next? Abortion? Nope! Then what is next? An unwanted pregnancy turns into an unwanted baby. The unwanted baby turns into an unwanted child spending their childhood in and out of foster care. Many of these children may end up in and out of incarceration for the rest of their life. If you support denying abortion, then you must support the consequences. And that would be the children. Are you willing to take this on as well? I think not.
James Galvin
Sahuarita
Second Amendment interpretation
Re: the May 29 letter "Second Amendment."
A letter writer stated that the Second Amendment is out-of-date. Well, no it's not. He talks about muskets and musket balls being used when it was written. The worn musket appears nowhere in that amendment. The last part of it reads, "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." The word "arms" is a very generic word that is still valid today. People have a God-given right to protect themselves and their families. With the advances in technology, arms have improved over the many decades. We are not living in the days of the musket anymore.
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The writer also talks about a standing militia in this amendment. Well, wrong again. The first part reads, "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state."
We should try reading the Bill of Rights without interpretation.
Steven Barker
East side
Integrate solar, hydropower
I commend the thinking of the writer to this forum who implored our energy managers to cover our CAP canals with solar power facilities (SPFs). I’m proposing the use of similar technology to address that writer’s water-evaporation problem; our general “shrinking-reservoir” problem; and this so-called problem: some of the harvested solar energy must be stored for use when sunshine is unavailable, and current energy-storage technology is inadequate to that need. I disagree that the latter problem exists. Current energy-production/storage technology can already meet our need for energy storage.
Float SPFs on top of our hydroelectric reservoirs. There positioned, they are near the dam, where the energy harvested by them is readily available for use in pumping water from the effluent side of the dam back into the reservoir (increasing the reservoirs' level). The energy used to drive the pumping of said water is stored as gravitational potential energy. This is high-capacity energy storage without the use of electric batteries.
E. Terry Mueller
Northeast side
21st century vs. 18th century
I just passed my 90th birthday. I am remembering attending a one-room rural schoolhouse in Tyler, Texas, with a dozen fellow students and an outhouse. One classmate, a boy of 12, brought his shotgun to school each day, as we came through fields of cotton barefoot and on the lookout for rattlesnakes. It was a different time in the history of this nation. Guns were never discussed. They were a tool of a Depression life — squirrels and rabbits being part of our diet.
I am old now and can truthfully say I am happy to live in the 21st century. I do not lean on 18th century laws, bigotry, standard of living and all that goes with my old life. I was not taught in school about the Second Amendment, but the 10 Commandments of God were front and center.
My grandfather, after seeing what a squirrel looked like after being shot with an AR-15 would ask: "What do you want one of those things for?"
Sue Rux
East side
Guns, guns, guns
There are so many guns floating around the U.S. that it seems like gun control is an impossible task. It isn't impossible, but I don't think it will solve the mass murder problem we have in this country. The solution will probably have to be a multi-faceted approach. Controlling sales with background checks, "red-flag" abilities, increased investment in mental health will all have to be put into play.
Who will do this? During President Joe Biden's speech in Uvalde, I heard someone in the crowd yell, "Do something" to which Biden's answer was, "We're working on it." Wrong answer. It would have been a great opportunity to educate the public about how our system works. The president can only discuss and cajole the members of Congress to act. We, the citizens, must write our representatives and senators demanding specific action and, if they don't do their job, vote them out!
It is entirely up to us, so do something!
Cynthia Soffrin
Northeast side
Critical thinking skills
Re: the June 1 article "AZ GOP blocks vote on gun background checks."
To: Warren Petersen, Chair, Senate Judiciary Committee. After reading Howard Fischer's article in the Arizona Daily Star, I was struck once again by how cowardly and hackneyed you and your Republican colleagues are. Why are all of you so afraid of discussion? You are a senator, and your job is to deliberate, discuss, persuade and vote; it is not to obfuscate and obstinately block measures with which you disagree. Are you afraid that you won’t be able to conduct a discussion about guns? Have you no other arguments than the silly “Criminals do not follow laws” and the hackneyed “It takes a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy with a gun.” So why not discuss these issues and give SB 1546 a hearing in the committee you chair? Surely, you and your colleagues have the critical thinking skills, the verbal agility and the ability to muster arguments beyond platitudes for a discussion. If you don’t, then you should not be senators.
Katharine Donahue
Foothills
Democrats caused record gun sales
Over the summer of 2020, people watched as cities across America were being burned and looted in the aftermath of George Floyd. A record $1 billion to $2 billion in property damages occurred. There have been record numbers of murders in cities across America, including Tucson. Democrats have passed No Cash Bail in many places and progressive Democrat district attorneys have allowed criminals back onto the streets, not pursued the death penalty in homicide cases, and charged lesser crimes than were committed. The result of all of this has created fear amongst many Americans and influenced them to purchase firearms. In 2020, a record 23 million firearms were sold in America, with the largest amounts sold over the summer of rioting. Last year there were over 19 million firearms sold, the second highest on record. More women, especially Blacks, are purchasing firearms. A woman in West Virginia, legally carrying a concealed pistol, just shot and killed a convicted felon who had opened fire with an AR rifle at a graduation party.
Claudia Wilson
Midtown
Get down to business, Congress
Here we sit, digesting and mourning yet another mass shooting at a school, drowning in our thoughts and prayers and the sense of complete helplessness. Again. Will our elected representatives finally provide a true common-sense solution to this problem? Or perhaps we could hope that they might be spending quality time and dialogue updating our hopelessly ineffectual immigration policies. Most politicians who aren’t simply inciting fear with their base will admit that comprehensive immigration reform is the answer to our “border problems.” But are they working on these hard issues that require bipartisan effort? Of course not. But take heart, Arizona: Congress is doing a deep dive into UFOs … clearly of pressing import to our national interests. Right? Please neighbors, let’s hold our elected officials accountable for getting hard work done, rather than simply posturing and campaigning. Let’s insist they get to work!
Melinda Sims
Northwest side
Huge omission
Re: the May 30 article "Without trust, truth we have no chance at a democracy."
Though I agree with Patrick DeConcini's main points, his essay had a huge omission.
Yes, China, Russia and Iran undermine our democracy by disseminating untruths through social media, but who in fact has done the most damage to our nation in this regard? In my opinion, without any doubt it is the Disinformation Commander in Chief Donald Trump and his loyalists. More than anyone in my 80 years, he has sown doubt in our essential institutions, like our intelligence services and the FBI, the press and Congress, and tells truths only when convenient. Most egregious of all is his Big Lie, causing doubt in the uninformed who, despite the fact that the courts in over 60 cases found no fraud, now question if our elections are fair. I agree with DeConcini that our military leaders have integrity and can be trusted, but with Donald Trump as Commander and Chief, such was clearly not the case. Let's hope he is never in that position again.
Phineas Anderson
Catalina
