LETTERS: Clinton campaign has offered many smart specifics

Is the Review-Journal just not paying attention? Or are we seeing a display of willful ignorance regarding Hillary Clinton's policies? The "Demand specifics" editorial (Sept. 26 Review-Journal) claimed that the policies Mrs. Clinton has outlined lack specifics. No other candidate has rolled out as many policies with as much detail as Mrs. Clinton.

On higher education, the Review-Journal claims it's all about subsidies. False. Mrs. Clinton has proposed cutting interest rates on student loans and incentivizing states to invest in colleges and universities through federal partnerships, simplifying federal student financial aid and providing early Pell notification.

On prescription drugs and the Affordable Care Act, one of her positions is actually the elimination of a subsidy. She said she wants to stop direct-to-consumer drug company advertising subsidies and reinvest in research. And allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices is also not a subsidy — and it's also a good policy.

Mrs. Clinton has also elevated other issues to the presidential level that other candidates are not even discussing, such as substance abuse and campus sexual assault.

There are programs in America that need serious investment (pejorative: "to be subsidized"). But there are plenty of policies from Mrs. Clinton that are creative and specific in their scope. So click on over to Mrs. Clinton's website and check out the issues section. You'll find more specifics there than on any other candidate's website.

Lydia Edwards

North Las Vegas

Background checks

I have seen a fair number of people claiming to be experts and defending the idea of expanded gun background checks. Many myths and untruths are being used to fabricate a false security blanket.

First, regarding online sales not requiring a background check, any vendor who transports a firearm to a purchaser is violating the federal law. You must have the vendor ship the firearm to a receiving vendor who also possesses a federal firearms license. The firearm cannot be released to the purchaser until a background check is conducted. Also, civilians are held to the standard of having a firearm shipped from one person to another via licensed dealers.

In addition, fees are charged separately by each dealer being used, with the price varying from one to another.

Gun shows are no different these days. Cellphones are used to conduct a background check, the same as if it were in a store. That's because most gun show vendors are also operate an actual gun store, and the same rules of selling a firearm still apply.

The only loophole is a person-to-person transaction between private citizens. In order to regulate and mandate private citizens, every owner of a firearm would have to have them all registered, so that any transfer could be monitored via the expanded background check. They say this is common sense, but the same people who laughed at Donald Trump's comment about rounding up 11 million undocumented immigrants for deportation seem to think registering 300 million firearms owned by 100 million Americans is doable. This would only be possible if these people were all sheep.

Thomas Miller

Pahrump