Fresno Bee letters: On shootings and gun control, baby formula shortage and more

‘Good guys with guns’ doesn’t work

From 2012-17 we saw the “Kansas Experiment” where Republicans, in complete control of that state, cut taxes in an attempt to prove that less revenue would generate more revenue. It didn’t. It was a complete disaster. Here’s a clue how bad: they elected a Democrat governor. In Kansas! Yet, Republicans still tout what the first President Bush called “voodoo economics.”

Now, we’ve had the Texas experiment on guns. In 2012 the head of the NRA said: “Tthe only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,, so Texas began loosening gun restrictions even more in an attempt to prove that more guns on the streets would reduce gun violence. It has not. It’s been a complete disaster. Voodoo public safety.

Ted Cruz’s idea: only one heavily guarded fortified door in and out of every building. Great, except when you have a fire inside or the “bad guy” gets in anyway and one egress isn’t enough.

In the last eight years Texas has had seven mass shootings with a total of 95 dead and 121 injured. My question: if Texas can’t get enough “good guys with guns,” who can?

Keep guns away from evil people

I am writing in regards to the recent shootings. As horrific as the shootings were, it would be worse if we took away the rights of people to bear arms, which our founding father’s fought so hard for. The problem is not the sale of guns, but to find a way to keep them out of the hands of evil individuals bend on destroying people they dislike or disagree with.

What we need is not only tougher gun laws, but we need to raise the age to 25 before a person can purchase a gun or knife of any kind. This can be done in part by requiring a through background check before allowing anyone to buy a weapon. Also the people selling these weapons need to work with the police to see if the buyer has a criminal record, or if they have a mental problem.

I hope this will at least solve part of this problem.

Bullying a reason for shooting

With so any opinions of solving the shootings going on in the United Stares, I thought about putting in my 2 cents. Having been bullied as a child myself, I can understand this real problem in the schools. This phenomenon, bullying, could be life destructive.

As I understand it, the shooter at Uvalde elementary school in Texas, had been a student at the school himself. Why was he waiting to reach the age of 18 to be able to purchase the weapons? He must have been planning this all along.

If something happened at his alma mater, for instance being bullied, it could be a reason for this horrific act. Whether this is a reason for these horrific acts to occur is up to the experts to determine, but I know personally, bullying at the schools is very prevalent.

GOP hypocrisy over baby formula

An attractive news commentator on Fox News was lamenting the shortage of baby formula. The criticism harshly condemned the Biden administration. According to her, Biden was essentially incompetent in dealing with the crisis.

The Republican mantra is small government. Let capitalism and the private sector do its job.

Abbott is a large producer of the formula, which according to a Food and Drug inspection found four consumer complaints with merit. Inspectors found the cronobacter sakazakii bacteria in baby food plus multiple other issues, and the plant had to be shut down to clean up.

Now, Republicans criticized Biden for not being competent in fixing the problem that private ownership and capitalism has created. Is it irony or hypocrisy? Exactly what do Republicans stand for?

Manchester Gate class sets example

With the pandemic and recent shootings, my class has tried to prevent anger against one another by talking about the similarities of our cultures and the unique differences that make us and America a beautiful place to learn and work together.

We have learned to make a difference in our community and in the process, learned about the following leadership skills: respect, responsibility, resourcefulness (the three Rs), commitment, communication, cooperation (three Cs), fun, learning from our failures, and moving forward (three Fs).

We helped the community by researching and writing a PowerPoint presentation about the Native Americans who made a difference in America and then we crafted a beautiful ceramic mural for the school about the Native American heroes.

Through our individual cultural PowerPoint presentations, we made presentations in class, to the student body, and at the Grizzly Stadium Idea Fest. We helped the Leukemia Lymphoma Society by selling our cultural recipe books, which we made from our PowerPoints.

So, in conclusion, we learned life skills, made our school beautiful, and we helped a lot of people. We are super proud to be a part of Manchester GATE and especially grateful that we are in Ms. Traskin’s room 23 “Making a Difference.”

Correcting facts on Sierra plane crash

Peter Lomax’s letter last month, while obviously written with the best of motives, requires some clarification.

On Dec. 6, 1943, a B-24 bomber with six men aboard crashed into Huntington Lake. The crew had taken off from nearby Hammer Field in Fresno to search for a second B-24 which had disappeared a day earlier during a night training flight. Some have speculated that the pilot may have mistaken the lake for a Sierra meadow and tried to make an emergency landing during a snow storm. However, the two crew members who bailed out stated that the lake was not frozen. The wreckage of the plane, and the remains of its crew were discovered by a survey team in August 1955, when the lake had been drained for dam repairs.

Salvage operators with heavy equipment tried to extricate the plane from the muddy deep waters of Huntington Lake. At this time, the fuselage and wings were ripped apart — making the salvage operation of no importance.

The bodies of the six remaining airmen were recovered in 1955.

The original B-24 they had been searching for was discovered in July 1960 in Hester Lake, a small body of water in a remote area of the far eastern reaches of Fresno County, at 11,266 feet. SiIx additional bodies were recovered.

For a plane, with wing edges becoming iced up and going down — the Sierra Nevada can be unforgiving in a matter of moments. Right or wrong decisions are made in milliseconds.

In all, 12 young, brave crew members perished in December of 1943 while training to protect our freedoms from two foreign aggressors.

This is not meant to take anything away from the good that Mr. Lomax is bringing to our attention. It is just correcting some important facts.

This story was originally published July 3, 2022 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Fresno Bee letters: On shootings and gun control, baby formula shortage and more."