Today's Letters: Rescind law on red-light turns

By LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published August 13, 2007

When the traffic law "right on red" was passed, the law read something like this: All vehicles must come to a full and complete stop. Vehicles will yield to vehicles that have the right of way, then proceed with caution.

We can all agree you can throw that out the window. One of the most dangerous situations is when a vehicle is sitting at a red light in the far left lane to make a U-turn. The light turns green and in the middle of the U-turn, a driver comes to a red light and goes right without stopping and almost broadsides the vehicle in the right of way. These drivers will make gestures or follow too closely on the bumper of the car when they make the illegal move.

I believe this mentality has contributed to the epidemic of red-light running. It is time to rescind the law before someone else gets killed.

Cal Johnson, New Port Richey

There's a reason doctors are tardy

Where's a doctor when you need one? Helping others. We all need their help. Up at sunrise, off to the hospital to check on their patients. Then it begins: reading charts, talking to nurses, talking with patients, ordering tests, medications, consulting with other doctors, paperwork, answering pages.

By the time this is all done, it's time to go to their office. Have you ever had a 9 a.m. appointment? Now, it's 9:30 or 9:40. We get very upset because we were there on time and we had to wait so long, Meanwhile, the doctor is trying to get out of the hospital to the office.

What we as patients fail to realize is that our own special needs are just as important as every other sick person.

For years, I worked at Community Hospital of New Port Richey in the doctors' lounge. While working there, I got to know the doctors on a personal level, and being with them day after day I began to understand their lives.

You may say they are rich; yes they are. But they do what they do because they love being a doctor. All the years of schooling and learning and they are still learning each and every day. Taking care of the sick and trying to make them well. They love what they do.

Debbie Hamilton New Port Richey

Gun laws must adapt to change Aug. 8 letter

National gun registration fails

It seems that the writer defines adapting to change as serious incursions on the Bill of Rights, specifically, but not restricted to, the Second Amendment, which is the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

Class III weapons are those covered under federal laws created in the 1930s and include machine guns, silencers, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, destructive devices, and other weapons. One must apply to the federal government for a "Class III" license to own and possess such weapons, which otherwise are illegal.

To expand such a system to all firearms currently exempted from Class III is national gun registration, pure and simple. To put the required final say-so to a local elected or appointed law-enforcement official, who most likely doesn't know who you are, who doesn't want to be bothered, and/or who may harbor serious anti-gun bias, is a contradiction to a basic right. Florida did away with such a system many years ago.

Canada recently tried national gun registration and it failed miserably. Canada and other countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia have seen violent gun crime rise under similar plans, despite astronomical government spending, and an unruly bureaucracy. In these countries, the first step to banning most or all firearms was a national registration program.

The writer quotes the Virginia Tech president about personal freedom versus societal safety. I'd rather quote Benjamin Franklin who said, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Thomas Jefferson was speaking about self-government and state constitutions when he said "The constitutions of most of our states assert, that all power is inherent in the people ... that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed."

Prohibiting all means of self-defense on the campus at Virginia Tech was likely a contributing factor to that tragedy. There was no one with the capacity to properly defend himself, and the shooter knew that. Gun-free zones do not prevent school shootings. Criminals do not obey gun control laws or gun registration laws.

National gun registration is a proven failure. It would solve nothing, undermine states rights, violate the Second Amendment, jeopardize all of our Bill of Rights, and be in direct conflict with the intent of our founding fathers.

Lee Hanson, Hudson

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[Last modified August 12, 2007, 20:39:04]