Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Comment Archives: stories: Columns: Letters: Last 7 Days
Re: “Lamborn and the Black Forest Fire, meat-free living, gun control and more”
David Justice, the Colorado National Guard is good enough for you, eh? Would that be the same Colorado National Guard the machine gunned women and children during the Ludlow Massacre? No thanks, I'll keep my rifles. And your opinion on the second amendment is worthless. Supreme court already said that owning a gun is an individual right and that there are no "collective" rights, too bad for an authoritarian collectivist such as yourself.
Posted by
Stacy in Woodland Park
on 06/19/2013 at 12:01 PM
Re: “Bach and pot sales, road closure proposal, and the gun debate”
Hi Stacy in Woodland Park…
According to your NPR source: "Overall, the city's murder rate has dropped dramatically in the FIRST THREE MONTHS of this year, to a level not seen since 1959." This information is correct, backed up by many media reports.
However, letter-writer Ron Coleman referred to FEBRUARY, the month after the presidential inaugural, when he wrote, "The next month the murder rate dropped to a 1958 low."
According to the sources below, February's 14 murders actually represented the lowest monthly total since January 1957, when there were 12. We therefore changed the year in Ron's letter to 1957...
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/…
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=n…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkbl…
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2013/…
Thanks for taking the time to read the Indy and send us your thoughts.
— Mary Jo Meade (a fact-checker at the Indy)
Posted by
Mary Jo Meade
on 06/17/2013 at 9:54 AM
Re: “Bach and pot sales, road closure proposal, and the gun debate”
Sil Arteaga, none of the gun control laws Giron helped pass will save people's lives.
You may think we have all been duped, but tell me exactly how you think these laws will be enforced? How are the police going to prove a firearm originally bought in the 1990s was sold in a private transfer after July of 2013? How are they going to prove a background check was not done? How are they going to prove that someone has not continuously owned their 16 cartridges magazine?
Also, the NRA does not sell firearms and does not make money from firearm sales. 85% of their funding comes from membership dues and individual donations.
The bottom line, Sil, is that you are the one who has been duped.
Posted by
Dave H
on 06/15/2013 at 4:32 PM
Re: “Bach and pot sales, road closure proposal, and the gun debate”
And to be clear, Kirk Woundy, if you actually DID all this fact-checking that you claim then you would know that the murder rate in Chicago dropped to a 1959 low, not a 1957 low. http://www.npr.org/2013/04/02/175997137/ch…
Layers and layers of fact checkers.................................
Posted by
Stacy in Woodland Park
on 06/14/2013 at 5:02 PM
Re: “Bach and pot sales, road closure proposal, and the gun debate”
To be clear, Mad Dog 20 20, IndyJones is not the Independent. There is no relation. And we fact-check all letters before going to press, though we cannot do the same for online comments. Thanks for reading. Kirk Woundy Editor-in-chief
Posted by
Kirk Woundy
on 06/14/2013 at 6:15 AM
Re: “Bach and pot sales, road closure proposal, and the gun debate”
Wrong again Indy. You remind me of the Gazette. They print all kinds of letters no matter how many falsehoods they contain. Who cares about facts. If I hear something on a conservative radio it must be true. Yeah right. You are wrong and Ms Lytle is correct. I had to call and make sure I got a ballot as I did not bother to vote in the previous election because there was nothing to vote for and I did not want to waste the stamp. I was told it was a good thing I called to say I was active as they were not planning on sending me a ballot. It was a good decision to block Gessler's plan. And nonsense like that which prevent people from expressing their first amendment rights can never be allowed to happen here.
Posted by
mad dog 20 20
on 06/13/2013 at 6:39 PM
Re: “Bach and pot sales, road closure proposal, and the gun debate”
The letter from the NAACP Colorado president is shockingly absurd. The fact is, since the first no-excuse mail ballot in 1994 no colorado secretary of state nor any county clerk has ever sent mail ballots to inactive-failed to vote voters because the law always prevented it. Gessler pressed for statewide uniformity so Denver's election processes are the same as El Paso's process.
Also, not one overseas ballot was prevented from being mailed. This claim is totally false.
Evers taught us that every vote is precious and shouldn't be cancelled out by an ineligible vote. Unfortunately, this letter is designed to simply take a swipe at Gessler which does a disservice to the public.
Posted by
IndyJones
on 06/12/2013 at 11:18 AM
Re: “Lamborn and the Black Forest Fire, meat-free living, gun control and more”
Mr. Justice. The milita to which the Second Amendment refers is the whole of the people. ALL of us. There is evidence aplenty in the Federalist/Anti-Federalist Papers and other quotations from the founders that clearly state this fact. Justice Scalia referred to this fact in his landmark D.C. v. Heller majority opinion.
Additionally, even the earlier SCOTUS precedent, U.S. v. Miller (1939) supported this fact. In addition to defining the types of weapons protected under the amendment (arms in common use that have a reasonable relationship to the efficiency of a militi), the Court said this:
"With obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of such [militia] forces the declaration and guarantee of the Second Amendment were made. It must be interpreted and applied with that end in view.” - UNITED STATES v. MILLER, 307 U.S. 174 (1939) 307 U.S. 174
This, also, was cited in the Heller opinion.
Mr. Justice, there is no sane argument to be made that military-pattern semiautomatic rifles and their component parts don’t meet both prongs of the Miller test. This test exists to clarify what weapons are protected, and why.
All of this is included in the Heller precedent that establishes once and for all that the right is an individual right of the people, that the primary reason for guaranteeing the right is to enable them to respond with their own weapons in cases of emergency, and that the right exists independent of both the Constitution and any requirement for formal membership in any military organization.
Add to this the fact that all of these issues covered in both precedents were established well after the National Guard was created under Congress's Article 1 powers, which proves that your assertion that the National Guard is that to which the amendment refers holds no water.
You can't rewrite history, Mr. Justice. We won't allow you to get away with it.