MILITARY
Time to end policies
that cost troops’ lives
David Freed’s column (“It’s no longer worth it; bring our troops home,” Opinion, Dec. 26) was outstanding.
He is one of the few writers who understands what is happening to our military, which continues to be ordered into unwinnable wars — for example, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
For decades, the United States’ arrogant foreign policy has cost numerous lives and dollars.
WILLIAM HARRIS, ALPHARETTA
NEWTOWN SHOOTINGS
Tax weapons sales
to fund more police
Why don’t our government authorities — federal, state, and/or local — just set a minimum tax of $15,000 to $25,000 on each handgun for sale; $10,000 to $20,000 for each rifle or shotgun, and $100,000 for an assault-type weapon? If they won’t do that, they could set a registration fee or permit of at least $20,000 for each gun, to be payable before anyone was allowed to buy a weapon of any kind.
Such taxes would be used to hire more police officers to protect our unarmed citizens — especially our children in schools.
Such prices wouldn’t necessarily hurt gun dealers or manufacturers, but might deter the loonies from buying highly taxed weapons. Although cheap, black market weapons would continue to plague our society, anyone caught with such a gun would face a stiff fine or minimum jail time of six months or more.
CHARLES TATTER, MARIETTA
Protect our children,
repeal gun-free zones
Imagine how much faster the shootings at Columbine High School, Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook Elementary School would have ended, and how many lives would have been saved, if an adult who challenged the killers had a firearm.
Our problem isn’t too many guns. Our problem is that government has created areas where killers know that their victims will be defenseless by law. We need to repeal the gun-free school laws so that background-checked parents and teachers can effectively protect our children with firearms.
MIKE MENKUS, MARIETTA
Legislators should live
among guns they OK’d
It seems to me that if guns are so safe, and to be used for only self-defense, why not allow them in Congress, in the Senate and in courtrooms? Let the legislators who are indebted to the NRA learn to live with the dangers that they have imposed on the rest of us.
Waking every morning to hear the names of the people murdered the night before doesn’t give much hope that these guns will protect us. I don’t know that there is a solution to problems concerning gun issues — but I do think the elected officials who imposed the rules need to live with those same rules that the rest of us do.
SUSAN W. WATSON, ATLANTA
