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Pasco Letters to the Editor

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 4, 2008

Into The Cauldron

Arthur Hayhoe's letter May 26 ("10 Years Later") regarding a gun ban blithely ignores the Constitution and experiences of a number of countries that confiscated guns from the general public.

Consider Australia. Prior to that country's 1996 gun ban, crime had been declining steadily for 25 years. The results after the ban: Homicides went up 3.2 percent; armed robberies, 45 percent; and gun homicides in the state of Victoria, 300 percent. And there was a dramatic increase in home burglaries and assaults on the elderly.

The experiences of Australia, fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Tito's Yugoslavia, to name a few, all demonstrate a significantly increased vulnerability for the unarmed population at large from criminal and/or political predators.

At present, crimes in the U.S. often overwhelm the overburdened assets of the police. Nowhere in Hayhoe's piece does he suggest any alternative methods for the public to defend itself when the police are unavailable or preoccupied with other crimes in progress.

Perhaps the advent and proliferation of surveillance devices to help identify, prosecute, and incarcerate the criminal element will one day make it possible to stop arming. But at present, the rates of carjackings, home invasions, armed robbery, etc., are a constant reminder to the public that an army of vicious predators, both criminal and political, are more than willing to ravage any unarmed community or country.

Many countries have figuratively placed their hands in the boiling cauldron of gun control. All have been badly burned.

Despite failure after failure, why would anyone suggest that this country should now place its hand in the cauldron? Would things be different this time? Not likely.

JAMES LUCZYNSKI

Wesley Chapel

Doesn't Get It

Regarding "10 Years Later":

"Selective memory" is to pretend to recall only parts of an event or a document. Arthur Hayhoe is afflicted with this disorder.

Hayhoe practices intellectual dishonesty in his attempt to trash one of the first 10 amendments (our Bill of Rights) found in the U.S. Constitution. He would discard the Second Amendment (the "Right Of The People To Keep and Bear Arms").

Selective memory, morality and hypocrisy have always been the trademarks of pacifists who oppose only certain wars, death penalty opponents who support abortion, professing Christians in their obedience to all of the Ten Commandments and especially among those who would scrap the Constitution.

All of the Bill of Rights, and the precious individual freedoms they protect, are a "package deal." Seems that Hayhoe just doesn't get it!

P.J. CORR

Wesley Chapel

Find Another Target

If there was a comparison between an oil company's shirt division (if they sold shirts) and a department store selling shirts, it is a whopper: Department stores buy a shirt from China or Vietnam, preprinted, and sell it in their store.

If Exxon were in the shirt business, it would have to get cotton seeds from America for $25 per bag. Because there aren't enough cotton seeds in America - the liberals won't allow enough cotton-seed growing in America - they would have to buy seeds from the OPEC Seed Company in Saudi Arabia for $150 per bag and transport the seeds to America.

Exxon then would have to buy or lease farmland and plant the seeds, fertilize them and keep them watered. Then, after the cotton plants grow, Exxon would have to harvest the cotton bolls and take them to an Exxon factory to make the cotton into cloth for the shirts. The cotton cloth would have to be transported to the Exxon sewing factory to be sewn into shirts, and then the shirts would be transported to the Exxon lettering factory for printing.

The printed shirts would have to be transported by Exxon trucks to Exxon stores, where they are sold to the public. Exxon would do all this with mostly American employees and still only make a 6 percent profit margin, which is not a lot of money.

All the department store did was buy the shirt from a foreign country and sell it, and the buyer has to pay shipping. Maybe big oil isn't so big and bad after all. Why not go after big beer, big coffee, big whiskey or Wal-Mart? They all have much larger profit margins than oil companies.

JOHN LALLEMAND

Dade City

The Costs Of War

Before there was a wall there was a message board. One letter on that simple board read: "And God said, 'To you I have given all that you need.' So why do you arrest me for smoking a little weed?"

"And God said, 'Thou shalt not kill.' So why do you arrest me for doing his will?"

It was signed "a little sister."

Little sisters grow to become old women who now look at the little sisters of grandsons. Truly, we have enough walls, statues and graves. What we need are our big brothers to grow old with us.

As Americans, we need to get our priorities in line and not worry so much about a scarf worn in a commercial but, rather, about the lies of fear that are served up with too much ignorance and topped with an unhealthy mixture of "me first" and "I thought you were threatening me."

Like fees and added costs that are hidden in the fine print and ignored, the true cost of war is hidden behind the closed doors of Dover Air Force Base and in the rehabilitation centers of the VA. The choice is ours - little sisters are watching.

PENO HARDESTY

New Port Richey

Good Imagination

Don't believe for an instant that any laws or amendments recently passed will limit Pasco County's or any county commission's income (our taxes, special assessments and fees).

County commissioners have unlimited power to raise money. If assessed values are limited, they raise millage rates. If the millage rate is limited, they raise fees or assessments, such as a new $10 million assessment ($47 per home) for stormwater management just implemented. If all else fails they will add to our sales taxes.

Homesteaded property taxes may not have gone up much, but fees and assessments did, and the tax load just got shifted to non-homestead property.

State government income is limited by how much we spend. The federal government's income is limited by how much we earn. County income is limited only by their imagination - and they seem to have a good one.

JOHN INHOFER

Land O' Lakes

The writer is regional director, West Central Florida, for Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.

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