Barack Obama on Mount Rushmore?
To the editor:
Please send me a new copy of the Monday, Jan. 21, Review-Journal. I hate to have to ask this of you, but I barfed all over my copy when I saw the political cartoon in which brain-dead Arizona Republic cartoonist Steve Benson assessed President Obama's first term by showing him placed on Mount Rushmore alongside George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and Abe Lincoln.
Evidently, Mr. Benson never took Economics 101, and so he doesn't know that any president who tries to ruin this country by running up a trillion-dollar-per-year deficit in his first four years, and who has promised to continue economic policies that will continue to generate trillion-dollar deficits each year in the foreseeable future, should be impeached, not honored.
Or is Mr. Benson part of the committee that gave President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize before he actually did anything, in hopes that maybe he'd do something someday?
I'll be looking for my clean copy soon. I promise to keep it clean by not looking at Mr. Benson's cartoon.
BOB ASHBY
LAS VEGAS
Reasonable limits
To the editor:
The National Rifle Association seems to be worried about Second Amendment rights being taken away. Nobody has proposed to take away those rights, just to sensibly limit certain weapons.
The ATF currently enforces strict licensing requirements on the private possession of howitzers, bazookas and grenade launchers. So it makes sense that since the government already sets limits on some weapons, restrictions on a few more does not endanger the Second Amendment.
Meanwhile, I notice that a boy in New Mexico has made use of his Second Amendment rights, and my television is currently saturated with someone in Houston also utilizing his Second Amendment rights.
These folks didn't need assault weapons to assert their Second Amendment rights.
How about it? Let's at least limit the most deadly weapons.
DAVID ADAMS
LAS VEGAS
An armed populace
To the editor:
On Jan. 20, columnist Sherman Frederick asserted that the Second Amendment's original purpose - leaving the people with the tools necessary to oppose a tyrannical government - is obsolete.
His reasoning is simple: We the people can't oppose a government armed with tanks, drones and jets. A farmer and his sons could hold off a bunch of redcoats during the Revolutionary War, but we would have no chance against today's Marines.
Mr. Frederick seems to forget that in the Revolutionary War we lost most of our battles against the British army, but we won the war. This is for the same reason that we lost in Vietnam and are losing in Afghanistan. If the traditional battle is on equal terms, the stronger army will win. Not so in an insurgency, especially if large areas are involved.
To suppress an insurgency, one has to control the territory, which is impossible if the population is hostile and armed. Assuming the Marines supported a tyrannical government, how many personnel do they have?
Even looking at the limited Las Vegas Valley, you can see a scenario where insurgents shoot at government forces, kill or injure a soldier or two and disappear into the night. How long do you think it would take for a tyrannical government to find itself limited to the control of a small number of cities, with the rest of the country inaccessible?
I hope it never comes to our having to fight a tyrannical government, but the chances of such a government defeating 90 million armed Americans fighting a guerrilla war are slim. In this context, semi-automatic rifles using military-caliber ammunition are extremely important, not for hunting but for protecting the rest of the Bill of Rights.
I'm sure that a great majority of American gun owners, myself included, didn't acquire their guns in preparation for a confrontation with the government. On the other hand, the importance of the Second Amendment to our freedom is not diminished because of technological advances in weaponry.
NACHMAN KATACZINSKY
LAS VEGAS
No leadership on spending
To the editor:
I must take great exception to the Jan. 19 letter from Terry J. Donnelly ("He had to take over"). Take off the rose-colored glasses and look at the big picture: The problem is a lack of leadership being offered by President Obama or U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
To just raise the debt ceiling is not the answer in this country. I for one am very pleased that fiscally conservative Republicans and not the liberal Democrats control the U.S. House of Representatives. Our problem over the past four years hasn't been a lack of revenue, but spending.
This president, along with Sen. Reid, has spent more money than ever in four years of being in power. According to one of my friends who has a Ph.D. in finance, once we hit $18.3 trillion in debt, we will become another Greece.
President Obama: stop the spending and listen to the leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives.
ROBERT SULLIMAN
HENDERSON
Vigilantes
To the editor:
In response to the Review-Journal's Tuesday report, "Hundreds in Mexico becoming vigilantes":
What perfect timing for our Made in the USA gun lobby. Here we have ordinary citizens arming themselves against the tyranny of government - in this case, a government that's in cahoots with a special interest lobby, the drug cartels.
The NRA should grab this story and blow it into every nook and cranny of every blue state. Ask Attorney General Eric Holder and his friends why they armed the bad guys with automatic weapons with high-capacity magazines and failed to perform the required background checks. No answer expected.
President Obama, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and others should be asked how the little people should defend themselves when armed with government-approved pea shooters. No answer expected.
The vigilantes obviously cannot depend on the local or federal governments for protection. I think this is what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they wrote the Second Amendment.
CURTIS F. FRANK
BOULDER CITY
