Letters to the editor on gun rights, fired officer, loving your neighbor and ethics

2nd Amendment

An open letter to the Supreme Court of the United States:

The 2nd Amendment reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The meaning of this sentence is not self-evident, and has given rise to much commentary.

In my opinion it was written in a time when the English wished to separate themselves from the King and have the freedom to practice any religion of their choosing. How far afield have we come? When today so many people do NOT tolerate their neighbor practicing a religion that is different from their own.

I believe the 2nd Amendment meant the right to bare arms for traditionally lawful purposes such as self-defense. It did not mean to massacre innocent people in public spaces, including schools and churches.

Where is there a safe and happy medium? We have too many conflicting laws. The purpose should be to protect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as paraphrased from the Declaration of Independence, not to cause more death and destruction.

It is no longer necessary to bare arms to procure food, as it was in 1776.

Please take these thought into consideration in the future.

Fired officer

If Officer Wolff was driving with lights and siren on (“Officer who slammed patrol car into Jeep while on emergency call is fired,” May 12 Eagle), doesn’t he have the right-of-way, red light or not?

Love of neighbor

Recently Pastor Nathan Paulus contributed an op-ed calling for Christian support to immigration reform (“The path to citizenship has biblical underpinnings, May 6 Eagle). As a pastor in the Church of the Nazarene I am thankful to see such sentiments expressed here by people of faith.

We have a neighborly duty to support changes to a system that often unfairly hurts, excludes and complicates life for vulnerable people. We can find bipartisan solutions that provide security, restitution, permanence and dignity to all parties involved.

It is past time to fix our broken system in the name of being pro-life. It is time to move past talking points and focus on tangible, long term solutions. These are people, not political footballs. We are endangering and harming our fellow brothers and sisters when we play games and try to score points for the party.

Pastor Paulus gave very specific and very achievable steps to make our system better. Christians, please lead the way, call for change, let’s make this happen. For the love of God and love of neighbor.

Ethics policy

I was pleased to see the headline on May 12, regarding a new ethics policy for the City Council. On reading the details, however, I was deeply disturbed by what the new policy says about the council members’ concept of ethics.

Ludicrous is a $150 limit on gifts. In case they haven’t heard, this is a significant sum of money to most of their constituents. Much better would have been a $25 limit, or best of all, zero. Equally nonsensical is the zero limit on gifts from “…any…political or policy-based group …. or faith-based organization.”

Then, there is the advisory board being set up to decide whether the policy has been violated and what penalty, if any, is warranted. Each council member and the mayor will appoint one member to the new seven-member board. Have these folks heard of cronyism? Back to the drawing board, ideally after reading Plato’s Republic.