Letters: Hope withers | Tighten laws

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Hope withers as
shootings continue

Re. “Five arrested after store employee shot multiple times,” Page B1, Jan. 27:

Twenty-three days for the number of people killed in California within a month to demolish all other records, with the number at 27. And 25 days into the new year, there’s another shooting, at 11 a.m. in San Jose Camera & Video in Campbell. It seems the number of shootings grows, the number of people killed increases and my minimal faith in the gun lobby withers.

California has some of the most solid gun laws in the country. And yet, because Americans apparently need guns for the next revolution that’ll come about, even the toughest gun laws aren’t cutting it. States ranked far lower in gun control often have considerably less gun violence. Clearly, the issue is not the rigidity of gun control laws, but with allowing these people to own guns in the first place.

The gun lobby needs to change something, lest that revolution actually happens.

Uma Sharma
San Jose

Tighten gun laws
to reduce violence

Gun advocates have a mantra: “It’s not the gun, it’s the person,” which doesn’t make sense.

In light of the last two mass shootings in California gun laws should be changed at the absolute minimum. We need to raise the gun purchase age to 21.

Automatic weapons parts should be banned and gun buybacks more frequent. Gun owners should keep guns out of the hands of 5- or 6-year-olds, as seen in the media recently.

Celeste McGettigan
San Jose

Keep the focus on
Amazon plastic problem

Plastic is a symbol of environmental degradation that can be hidden within the constraints of a recycling bin. But this is not true for the waste produced by Amazon.

Amazon produced over 599 million pounds of plastic waste in 2020 alone. While the mega-retailer encourages recycling the packaging their orders come in, none of the plastic packing used by Amazon — including the bubble-lined plastic bags, the regular shipment plastic bags, and air pillows — are recyclable. Thus, good-meaning customers who attempt to recycle these plastics actually have their plastics ending up in landfills, where they will break down into micro-plastics and accumulate in organisms and in the environment.

Amazon must reduce the amount of plastic packaging in their shipments, and while they have the resources to make this happen, the only way to get Amazon to make this switch is by using the public’s voice and putting attention on Amazon’s plastic problem.

Emily Hance-Royse
San Jose

We shouldn’t celebrate
unconstitutional ruling

I was floored when Marc Thiessen said the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade was a victory for the Constitution (“Justice Kavanaugh deserves gratitude for abortion stance,” Page A9, Jan. 22). The Court, in its decision, disregarded the First Amendment admonition to “make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” This decision thrashed the First Amendment and used a religious belief to create secular law.

More importantly, the court’s flagrant disregard for the Constitution has shown the fragility of our democracy, when five individuals can make a decision to put shackles on citizens that have a different set of values. I am frightened by the direction our country is taking when the highest legal authority in our country uses religious dogma to govern United States citizens.

Bill Wallace
San Jose

Comic’s biggest crime
is not being funny

With Brian McCormick’s letter of Jan. 26 (“Paper shouldn’t bend to liberal pressure,” Page A6), I am happy that The Mercury News has finally found the one person who thinks that the comic strip “Mallard Fillmore” is funny.

I don’t want The Mercury News to stop printing any conservative columnists. I even subscribe to the Washington Post and New York Times for more.

“Mallard Fillmore,” though … where to begin? Supposedly a political balance to Doonesbury, but the rich set of characters built up by Trudeau are not balanced by a ranting duck.

Referencing his Wikipedia page, Bruce Tinsley used the strip to throw barbs at the judge in one of his DUI trials. Ironically, he attacked the judge as unqualified, attaining his position strictly due to politics. His strip has been produced since 2019 by Loren Fishman, a transition no one noticed, so it is clear that Tinsley’s tired formula is eminently replaceable.

Scott Adams’ “Dilbert” delivers funny conservatism.

Jim Von De Bur
San Jose

US war support is
lining wrong pockets

The U.S. war machine is at work in Ukraine in the U.S. proxy war against — the first step, as Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said, to “weaken Russia and pivot to China.” Yikes, this effort,