LETTERS: Yet no one fired a single shot at demonstration

How interesting that the editorial board feels the need to point out that lax gun laws made it possible for the protesters in Charlottesville to openly carry arms, but failed to point out that despite the thousands of people and hundreds of guns, not a single shot was fired. The editorial even goes on to boast that “Illinois is one of just five states that prohibits people from openly carrying handguns,” despite the fact that gun violence in Chicago is at its worst point in decades.

I would rather stand in a sea of armed angry protesters than on a corner in Chicago with a single gang-banger. The gun may be the vessel, but it is not the catalyst.

Scot Sinclair, Third Lake

Good luck with that, Gen. Kelly

Expecting White House Chief of Staff John Kelly to bring discipline to President Trump is tantamount to thinking that China can control North Korea.

Lanlan Hoo, Wheaton

Quit this president

It is time that we all act upon our ideals and support the people who have left the advisory business councils and appointed positions in the government because they object to the dangerous rhetoric spewing from the White House. When do you stand up for what you believe?

In Nazi Germany many people did not, or could not speak out. They said, “It can’t happen here.” In the South, people were silenced and could not escape the enslavement and torture that was forced upon them. We must write, speak out and demonstrate our rights as Americans. We must make the choice to say “no” and not follow the sheep that move along as the status quo.

I applaud those who quit their posts when it became clear that it was necessary to do so, and wrong not to. Let’s encourage others to do the same and follow the path of morality and the highest of Democratic ideals. We must not sit by and be run over.

Phyllis Markus, Evanston

Golf course has to be affordable

Thank you for your thoughtful editorial on the planned golf course on the South Side. We do need to have better plans for a golf course that Chicagoans can afford. And we need to do so prior to its construction.

Susan Beal, Hyde Park

Put Confederate monuments in Confederate cemeteries

Many Confederate monuments were created long after the end of the Civil War, apparently with the aim of placating the losers and intimidating those who had been legally freed from subjugation, rather than simply to honor the war’s leaders. Given that, it seems the logical way to address the controversial situation we face today would be to resettle the monuments among the final resting places of those who actually died in the war.

Columnist Gene Lyons reminded us on Saturday that Robert E. Lee never wanted a monument to himself, and had once urged an embittered Confederate war widow not to “train up your children in hostility to the government of the United States,” recognizing that “we are all one country now.” Cemeteries with the graves of Confederate soldiers would be the most fitting places to let these sad memorials “rest in peace” among those they led.

Jeffrey L. Stern, Highland Park

How about Fermi Way?

When columnist Mike Sneed reported that Ald. Gilbert Villegas and Ald. Ed Burke are pushing to pull down from a pedestal an old Roman Column 2000 years old because it was a gift from Mussolini — and also rename Balbo Drive for another Irish politician — I thought this isn’t right. Would you destroy the Mona Lisa if it had been a gift from Mussolini? Rename the street, but name it after another Italian, Enrico Fermi, whose work here added to Chicago’s reputation as the city of many Nobel Prize winners. Fermi is known internationally because his discoveries brought World War II to an end.

I would however be in favor of renaming Balbo Drive as Burke Drive if the alderman could pass a law that bars politicians from serving more than 10 or 15 years or doing business with the city as long as they are in office.

Ed Arturi, Arlington Heights