LETTERS: DMV’s proposed ‘Active Shooter Program’ badly misses mark

To the editor:

I read with total dismay the article about the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles’ request for $48,000 to purchase 12 semi-automatic rifles and the training for the people involved in the “Active Shooter Program” (“Nevada DMV seeks funds for weapons,” Sunday Review-Journal). Donnie Perry, administrator of the department’s Compliance Enforcement Division, recently presented the proposal to the state Legislature.

Those at the DMV have perhaps seen way too many “Rambo” movies. I spent 30 years on continuous active duty in the U.S. military, including combat tours in Vietnam, then had a second career as an Arizona State law enforcement officer, assigned to an FBI safe streets task force. With some degree of credibility, I can state that the DMV’s idea may very well be one of the dumbest I have ever heard put forth by a government agency. And that’s saying a lot.

So here’s the scenario I assume Mr. Perry and the DMV envision taking place if this request is approved, and if God forbid, a nut job with a gun (maybe a semi-automatic rifle) comes through the door of my local DMV office and starts blasting away at the 300 or 400 innocent people sitting there waiting for service: A trained officer hears or sees the problem and immediately runs to the “secure area” where the “biometric safe” is located. He remains perfectly calm and has no problem opening the safe, getting the weapon out and loading it. (I assume it would be kept unloaded to avoid some type of accidental discharge.)

The officer then runs back to the lobby area — assuming he can get there without being blocked, knocked down or trampled by the mass of people doing everything they can to get out of the room he’s trying to get into. Once there, the officer, despite the total chaos present, immediately identifies the shooter and drops him like a bad habit in one single shot. Not once does he mistake a DMV customer for the nut job, or risk hitting any DMV customer who might be in close proximity.

I wonder if Mr. Perry has ever been in a firefight or witnessed true chaos. I’ve experienced both. Chaos often happens in military combat situations and in law enforcement, with people trained to expect chaos. But in a situation involving 300-plus people whose only experience with chaos is Thanksgiving dinner with relatives, you have a whole new meaning of disorder.

This proposal is a bad one and should not be taken seriously. Hopefully, the Legislature will listen to Assembly Speaker John Hambrick and Assemblyman Chris Edwards, and tell Mr. Perry and the DMV, “Absolutely not.”

THOMAS HAYDEN

HENDERSON

Arming the DMV

To the editor:

So the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles feels it needs to arm its locations with military-grade assault weapons to defend itself from a problem of its own creation (“Nevada DMV seeks funds for weapons,” March 15 Review-Journal). Haven’t we seen how government agencies abuse the use of firepower, as the Bureau of Land Management did in Bunkerville with the Bundy ranch standoff?

MARC KAPLAR

BOULDER CITY

Hillary’s email excuses

To the editor:

Regarding “Clinton: Emails weren’t classified” in the March 11 Review-Journal: Believing Hillary Clinton’s explanation as to why she used her own private email server to conduct official U.S. State Department business would require — as she once said during a Senate hearing — “a willing suspension of disbelief.”

STEVEN G. HAYES SR.

LAS VEGAS

Clinton arrogance

To the editor:

Hillary Clinton not only set up a private email account for conducting her official State Department business, but she also set up that account on her own private server in her house. She did that with clear premeditation in order to prevent the public from finding out what she was doing.

Now she is putting out all kinds of excuses about how it was more convenient than government servers. I never knew government officials could do what they wanted for their own convenience.

Mrs. Clinton claims there was no classified information sent in those emails. If that is true, we should all be glad, but that doesn’t excuse her actions. I expect that she will soon echo her testimony before Congress about the Benghazi slaughter; “What difference, at this point, does it make?” Such is the Clinton arrogance. However, Clinton supporters need not fear, she will easily slide out of this scandal just as she has done with the scandals she’s been involved in since her days in Arkansas.

WALTER F. WEGST

LAS VEGAS

Nuclear negotiations

To the editor:

Pure logic dictates that if two parties have directly opposed goals — such as one seeking to obtain nuclear weapons, and the other aiming to prevent that — then no agreement can be reached solely through negotiation. It follows directly that if any agreement is reached, then one of the two parties had to abandon its goal.

In the White House’s proposed agreement with Iran, the party that abandoned its goal would be the United States. Negotiating this agreement makes saying otherwise a flat-out lie.

LAUREN KOHN

LAS VEGAS