An AR-15 is no Swiss Army knife

I guess we know where that judge in California stands when it comes to military weapons. He overturned California’s ban on assault weapons, saying it “violates people’s constitutional right to bear arms.”

I bet it took a long time for the gun lobby to dig up this guy. It really shows that certain judges really don’t belong on the bench, just like certain politicians are too crazy to be in office.

I guess it’s time to get rid of the California National Guard, the police or anyone whose job it is to protect us. We can all strap on AR-15’s and carry them everywhere. And if some nut kills a bunch of kids at a school again, oh well.

The judge is wrong, entirely wrong, especially in comparing an AR-15 to a Swiss Army knife. How many people have been killed with a Swiss Army knife?

Connie Orland, Plainfield

Give up filibuster, Sen. Manchin

Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia sells the filibuster as some honorable tradition in the Senate. It’s not! The filibuster was rammed through in the 1970s to make it harder for Blacks to vote. It violates our democracy’s guiding principle: majority rule.

The filibuster doesn’t compel the two major parties to come together in compromise; it makes it possible for the minority party to block every action brought forward by the majority, a desire that every minority party has.

Manchin keeps saying we have to bring together our the two parties, but he fails to mention that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has already blocked that by stating “my number one goal is to block every item of the Biden Administration.” McConnell has closed the door to negotiations, yet Manchin continues to pretend that the Republican Party is open to compromise.

Republicans in state legislatures across the country already have taken steps to deny the vote to millions of citizens by ramming through 381 voter suppression bills. This is a blatant attack on our democracy; no party committing such acts should be considered a partner in our democracy. Yet Manchin says he wants to continue shaking hands with these criminals.

Sen. Manchin is reaching out to a stone wall. The sooner he realizes that he is endangering our democracy by continuing to support the filibuster, the better.

Lee Knohl, Evanston

Suppressing history

At a Memorial Day ceremony in Hudson, Ohio, the event’s organizers cut off the microphone during part of a speech by Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Barnard Kemter.

The colonel spoke first about the origins of the day, which was created in part through the efforts of Civil War Union Gen. John Logan of Illinois. Logan called for Americans to honor fallen Northern soldiers by decorating their graves.

In his speech, though, Col. Kemter also described how a group Black people honored some 200 Union troops who had died as prisoners of war near Charleston, South Carolina. They gave the soldiers a proper burial, decorated their graves with flowers and organized a parade in their honor.

It during this portion of the speech that Col. Kemter’s microphone was cut off.

A story of honor and respect on Memorial Day? Yes. By good and brave men of the Union Army and by Black men who showed human decency for their fellow man.

Yet in the opinion of the “geniuses” who cut Col. Kemter’s microphone, this story was not meant to be heard.

John Trafny, U.S. Army veteran
Highland, Indiana