Letters to the Editor

Gun laws work

In Dan Boylan’s column “Answering Violence With More Guns,” he fails to mention one important fact when spelling out Hawaii gun laws: We have no “assault weapons” ban. So by his logic, if we did ban assault weapons, we would make Hawaii an even safer place to live. I find that absurd. Current laws are more than adequate and the numbers bear that out.

What Mr. Boylan glosses over is that perpetrators of recent shootings had extreme emotional problems that many people saw but did nothing about. He wants to lay the entire blame at the feet of guns without acknowledging there is more to these shooters than what weapon they used.

One other note: Currently, there is a bill introduced into the State Senate (SB 219, 134-c) that would not only prohibit owning “assault weapons,” but would make it a felony to possess one and allow the police to arrest you and confiscate that weapon. That our local government wants to take away weapons from law-abiding citizens should scare the hell out of you.

Larry Gill
Honolulu

Fight for fairness

I feel sorry for the letter-writer blaming the public worker unions for protecting their members’ well-being. Reality is unfortunately more complicated. Private-industry workers, believing their corporations’ anti-union messages, have turned unions away and are now experiencing declining working conditions, pensions morphed into precarious 401K plans at the mercy of Wall Street firms, more part-time work with no health benefits, layoffs and loss of retirement benefits. Don’t blame the unions; blame yourselves for not fighting back and losing it all! In this free-market economy, union members are the only ones fighting for workers’ rights.

Unions fight for a decent standard of living for workers. Unions fight for fair recognition of hard work. Union members have the right to work and enjoy the benefits of their organized labor.

Jacques Bargiel
Kailua

Political paradise

Bob Jones is shedding crocodile tears when he complains in his column “Leaders Aren’t Listening to Public.”

Doesn’t he realize that we are not just living on an island paradise, but we are in a political paradise as well? Hawaii has been run by the caring and well-intentioned Democrats for decades. This is the “best of all possible worlds,” to borrow a phrase from Voltaire.

Bob should get back in line and tell us how good we have it.

John Faris
Honolulu

Send your letters to dchapman@midweek.com.

Letters may be edited for clarity and space.