Letters to the Editor

Recent letter on the confiscation of guns spurs response from reader

I agree with Mr. Hurlbut’s title in the PVT on 7/23/21, “If they take our guns, only criminals will have them.” However, that is about all that I agree with.

I am a Democrat and I have guns in my home for protection, just like many other law-abiding citizens, and I don’t feel any threat whatsoever that the government is attempting to take away protection from our homes.

If such an attempt were made, criminals would keep their guns and use them to prey on those who gave up their guns. Law or no law, citizens as a whole, will keep their guns for protection.

But we should remember that guns, like autos are lethal, and that unqualified people like the insane, criminals, and immature people should not be allowed to own guns.

Further, we should try to stop, like President Biden is trying to do, those who are illegally putting guns in the hands of teenagers in cities like Chicago. Because those teenagers are killing each other along with other innocent people.

Some time ago Senator Feinstein made a comment to the effect that guns should be sold only to responsible people, and someone on Fox News like Low IQ Hannity or Shallow Brain Ingraham took the comment out of context and stirred up all this hate against the Democrats, claiming that we want to strip citizens of their guns. Why would we want to do this? We, like you, have our homes and property to protect, and assault weapons are not required. A 12-gauge shotgun will cut any unlawful intruder in half. Also, high-powered handguns will do numbers on home invaders.

The hate speech is stirred up by Fox News. Just check the records. We never had all this vitriol from the right until Fox News came on the scene.

I understand that in Canada, Fox News cannot refer to themselves as a news organization. They are notoriously known for stirring up mud and spreading hate and lies. Maybe they are trying to protect one of Trump’s criminal enterprises, gun running.

It’s all right to listen and watch Fox News for laughs, but beyond that they serve society in a negative way. No doubt Putin of Russia, along with Criminal Trump, are proud of them.

Jim Ferrell

Silver State’s water infrastructure is in need of additional updates

Nevadans do love swimming at Lake Mead. Unfortunately, pollution can ruin a day at the beach and make swimmers sick. In our latest “Safe for Swimming?” report, our researchers found that there were many beaches across America that were potentially unsafe on at least one day tested last year, and some beaches had enough fecal indicator bacteria to put swimmers at risk one out of every four days tested.

Runoff pollution and sewage overflows are common sources of pathogens in our water. To stop this pollution, we need to fix our outdated water infrastructure.

In July, the U.S. House passed the INVEST in America Act - a bill that not only provides urgently needed funding to stop sewage overflows but also dedicates at least 15 percent of those funds to green projects - including nature-based solutions that prevent runoff pollution from flowing into our rivers, lakes, and streams. Kudos to Rep. Steven Horsford, who voted for this measure.

When our country came together to pass the Clean Water Act nearly 50 years ago, we set a goal of making all our waterways safe for swimming. Let’s do it.

Sincerely,

Chloe Holder

Intern, Environment Nevada

Resident wants increased transparency in federal COVID-19 relief funds

This is a question for either the Pahrump Valley Times or the comptroller’s office regarding the article in the July 14 Pahrump Valley Times regarding the status of the COVID funds to Pahrump businesses who applied.

I and a lot of my friends and family are wondering if the list of business recipients who received money is public knowledge. Were these funds taxpayers’ money or another source?

If such a list is not available to others of us who did not apply, would someone with some authority explain why we, the taxpayers, voters aren’t privy to that information? The idea that such a big percentage of recipients aren’t complying with the outlined rules is deplorable. If they don’t eventually follow all the rules will there be any serious action taken against them? We citizens want to know.

Just asking,

Jerome Dowd

Superior women athletes in Olympics deserve equality

Once again it’s time for the Olympics. For the third time in a row, our nation won’t be represented in men’s soccer, because they failed to even qualify.

It’s up to our women, once again, to compete in the world’s most popular sport. On the international level, our national women’s team is ranked number one, our national men’s team somewhere around 20th.

Our women want to be paid the same as the men, even though they not equal, but in performance superior. If women in our society are to be paid and treated equally, so should our women athletes.

A soccer fan,

Joseph A. Baker

Most Dems have views like Groucho Marx, not Karl Marx

Today’s “conservative-Republicans” have done a masterful job of brainwashing and hoodwinking many Americans into believing that the national Democrats are now some kind of “socialists.”

We now have a #1 best-seller on the non-fiction list titled “American Marxism” (written by Mark Levin) with a picture of a hammer and a sickle on the cover. This would be laughable if it wasn’t so pathetic. Because with respect to their political and economic views, most of my fellow Democrats have views that are closer to those of Groucho Marx than they are to Karl Marx.

Please read the article titled “Bernie Sanders Isn’t A Socialist” by Paul Krugman which you can find online.

It appeared in the February 13, 2020 issue of the New York Times. Krugman won the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics, so it is safe to say that what he says about this is much more credible and believable than what a right-wing “Fox News” fanatic and extremist like Mark Levin says.

Sincerely,

Stewart B. Epstein

Getting medical assistance not what it used to be

How come in years past, about 1950 to 1965 doctors actually spent time with patients and actually cured them? Yet today’s doctors aren’t able to spend time with us and seem to find ways to refer us to a specialist that our primary doctors think is the one specializing in our problems.

The referral will usually be one to three months down the road, if that soon. So that means whatever our problems are, they get that much time to get worse.

There is something wrong with the way the health field is progressing don’t you think?

Today’s medical practitioners nearly always must refer one to a “specialist” for almost anything you go to them for..

Then the specialist needs to have tests done, X-rays, blood, etc. By the time one gets in to be seen, it’s been so long you are really sick or expired.

It seems that with all the information available, our primary doctors should be able to diagnose and correct most health problems on your first visit but it doesn’t happen. (Or at least not that I am aware of.) With government health care it’s only going to get worse, per some foreign country visitors.

A very close friend has been in pain and sick for approximately 10 or 12 years with the same problems and has seen multiple doctors, specialists, taken multiple CTs, X-rays, blood tests, usually the same ones over and over without any definite results. I’ve even had some of the same without results myself. When I was just in my early childhood, when I had a problem it was resolved, sometimes even in my own home.

Maybe some of the old-time practitioners are needed again. It might alleviate long periods between illness and appointments like today’s health care.

Henry Hurlbut

Identification is needed for most things, including voting

I guess if you tell a lie often enough, people will believe it. One such lie is that there was no corruption in the November election. I happened to listen to about 80 hours of testimony of observed corruption on television, all with affidavits that if were lies would be punishable by incarceration. Of course many of the TV stations refused to listen to these hearings, but the attorney general of Texas says they have over 800 cases of fraud in the election that are being brought to court just in the state of Texas.

Another lie, that many do not want you to know, is that the law the Democrats are promoting in Congress and the Senate, is that the election will be racist if we require identification. We need identification to do almost anything, fly, drive, etc. I do not understand how anyone could think that would be OK to not require identification.

Most of the nations of the world require identification to vote. Without identification, people could vote as many times as they want and not allow one vote to one citizen.

Judy Pendleton