The Editor:
True, not all guns are military grade.
General and former President Dwight D. Eisenhower said in 1953, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. ...”
In “The Original Intent of the Second Amendment,” published in 2009 at Oklahoma State University, Jeffrey P. Campbell states, “Perhaps the Constitution’s greatest quality lies in its ability to mean different things to different people. Whether the framers intended the document to be ambiguous or not, the vague wording of the Constitution ensured it would remain relevant for centuries ...” The current political controversy surrounding gun culture in the United States is that gun rights advocates largely ignore the clause before the comma (well regulated militia), and focus on private citizens’ rights to bear arms.
Our Constitution is a living document written by men who could not conceive of today’s modern weapons.
In my opinion, guns that obliterate any creature smaller than a rabbit but too dull to penetrate the hide of a deer are not good for anything but target practice, intimidation and piercing human flesh. Too bad modern weapons are also great for targeting shoppers, school kids and park, church and concertgoers. We must license and regulate those who bear such arms.
Donna Starr
Blaine
The Editor:
PeaceHealth is reportedly closing their outpatient palliative care program because it isn’t profitable. Donors to that program who were promised that it would be sustained must be furious.
Health care and profit are simply not compatible. Like all human services, including education, the programs should not depend on their capacity to make money as though that is the reason for having them. Capitalism and health care make rotten bedfellows.
The reason for having the palliative care program is to serve the community, plain and simple. An outpatient palliative care program helps people with no hope of recovery to be in their own homes. It also helps family members and other caregivers to manage the challenging experience of accompanying a close relative or friend as they move toward their death in peace at home, in a manner of their own choosing.
I urge all donors to PeaceHealth to cancel their donations to let PeaceHealth know that they can’t renege on promises they made to sustain the outpatient palliative care program. Palliative care, both outpatient and inpatient, is essential health care. PeaceHealth needs to step up and acknowledge that fact.
Lucy Morse
Ferndale
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