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Infringing 2nd Amendment rights saves lives

I would just like to point out if Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock’s Second Amendment rights hadn’t been infringed and he had a silencer, he could have killed at least another 50 people before anyone even discovered gunfire was taking place.

Lousy big governments — it’s a good thing our Founders put a suicide clause in the Constitution so unhappy citizens could shoot their leaders rather than vote them out.

Morons, please pay attention: The Second Amendment was to protect the states’ rights to have a militia, like the National Guard, so a standing Army wouldn’t be created and grow to consume 60 percent of our budget. If we want a robust Second Amendment, we should start by defunding the Pentagon and trying to wage peace worldwide as thoroughly as we have waged war.

Call your Congress-critters and tell them civilians do NOT need silencers and that poorly conceived Texas concealed-carry laws should not override carefully crafted Montana laws. It’s time for a refresher history course and some honesty in D.C. — that NRA money is soaked in blood. —Robert Petersen, Evergreen

Really think the rhetoric of ‘environmental extremists’ will save the earth?

In October, Debo Powers, a self-described volunteer fire lookout wrote a letter titled “How not to fight forest fires.”

In her opening paragraph, she named several Republican office holders as having made “outrageous and opportunistic” comments regarding wildfires. She said that they were pushing “a political agenda” that was “insensitive and unethical.”

What I find insensitive and unethical are environmental extremists like her who have nothing to say about the continuing lawsuits filed by her friends to stop logging and thinning. While she wrote that she was too busy at the time to respond to these evil Republicans because of her fire-fighting activity, she fails to note that most of her time in a lookout was spent writing a lengthy diary every single day extolling her work that she had published by a friend who has a blog and calls herself an editor and investigative reporter.

Earlier this summer in response to a Facebook posting by someone who talked about Jesus coming back — she sarcastically asked in writing “whether that would be before or after humans destroyed the earth?”

That shows the arrogance of the left — the earth was here long before humans were and will be here long after.

Yes, if we would just swallow the rhetoric of her and her friends and follow their political agenda, we would save the earth. How arrogant and ignorant. —Joseph Novak, Polebridge

Republicans must help us stop Trump

Republicans, where are you? We must all join together to stop Trump and his servants from bankrupting our nation, morally and financially. Weekly trips to his golf courses are costing the taxpayers millions of dollars. This extravagance is symptomatic of the elitism he brings to the White House and his Cabinet.

The threat of nuclear war is ever present as he threatens and attempts to intimidate other nations. He lies regarding all aspects of his time in office with stories of success that are fabrications of his imagination. He has accomplished nothing but fostering fear and unrest around the world and dangerous division within the United States. This brings into focus many members of his Cabinet who have followed his leadership style of waste and fraudulent behavior.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price has resigned after being exposed for spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayers’ money for private air travel. Three other Cabinet members, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Treasury Secretary Steve Munchin and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt have taken multiple taxpayer-paid flights on private or military aircraft. These politicians were not sent to Washington, D.C., to travel in luxury and live extravagant lifestyles at the taxpayers’ expense. We must put aside petty politics and join together during the next elections and eliminate these political opportunists before it is too late. Republicans hold all three branches of the government and have not accomplish any significant legislation. This must change. —Jerry Reckin, Kalispell

A panoply of suggestions on improving traffic flow in Kalispell

Some thoughts on resolving the traffic dilemma:

- Retain Main St. couplet around the Courthouse as an efficient, historically appropriate way to reduce the “Four Corners” gridlock at U.S. 93 (Main St) and U.S. 2 (Idaho).

- Accelerate the update of the City’s Transportation Study.

- Evaluate U.S. 93 Bypass use as traffic increases, the seasons change, and development occurs.

- Recognize that very little happens in terms of road building or major road improvements in Flathead County or Kalispell without substantial state and/or federal funding.

- Flathead County retail shelves and gas pumps are served by the trucking industry. Population growth spurs more trucks.

- The increase in the state gas-tax offers some hope that routes through or around the city may be addressed sooner rather than later.

- Obvious candidates for better transportation connectivity include the following:

— East side connector between south U.S. 93 and U.S. 2 using Willow Glen corridor.

— Upgrades to Reserve from U.S. 2 to U.S. 93 and the Bypass.

— Upgrades to Whitefish Stage.

— Extending Four Mile Drive east from the Bypass to Evergreen Drive and U.S. 2.

— Rose Crossing.

- Preserve adequate rights of way to accommodate future collector and arterial streets.

- County and city planning efforts are not always complementary, but an appropriate place for joint planning is in identifying and protecting transportation corridors. General efforts to coordinate future density projections would be beneficial, too.

- Decades of casual growth complicate infrastructure investment.

- Alternatives to private vehicle use such as sidewalks, bike paths, and bus service offer residents and visitors an opportunity to make shorter trips safely and pleasantly while freeing up roads and parking spaces.

- If Kalispell is to be an attractive place to live and visit, it needs to preserve a sense of community individuality by managing traffic impacts. —Margaret S. Davis, Lakeside