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Families should
step up for homeless
Re: “We must bring all to bear on homelessness” (Page A6, Dec. 14).
The homeless problem in California will be unsolvable until the families of these people come forward and offer to help them.
The state should not have to be the caretaker of the vulnerable among us. Family should. My parents have taken responsibility for my mentally ill brother for three decades. It is not easy, but the family will not allow him to be homeless.
If the families of these people don’t care, why should we?
Patricia Marquez Rutt
Redwood City
Let’s make efforts
not to squelch speech
After exiting the Cupertino Library on Wednesday with my ESL student, we encountered a 6-foot-long printed sign: “THE HOMELESS ARE VERMIN!” What? What jerk …? My outrage, however, was quickly tempered by my student’s question: “What’s vermin?” After defining vermin, I added a quick tutorial on free speech. Regardless of how offensive and hateful those words might be perceived by me, this sign’s text was free speech.
The incident also reminded me that protests and shouted epithets are as common on college campuses as teenage students. Remember Vietnam? Thankfully, grandstanding congressional representatives bullying university presidents to discipline free-speech speakers are fewer in number.
Instead of restricting free speech, consider using these situations as “communication opportunities” with one another. Let’s open dialogue channels. Discuss facts. Define our words. Explain our positions. Even agree to disagree. Our right to free speech needs to be affirmed, not quashed.
Marialis Seehorn
Sunnyvale
Buybacks pointless
if guns are remade
Re: “The guns were said to be destroyed. They were reborn instead.” (Page A1, Dec. 10).
Gun buybacks are a waste of money. Why? Those turning them in probably replace them sooner or later and aren’t likely the criminal element.
Sunday’s article, “The guns were said to be destroyed. They were reborn instead.” Is frightening. The guns aren’t destroyed, they’re sold to a private company that removes part of the gun (the one with the serial number) selling the rest as a “gun kit.”
The result is a batch of ghost guns, resold with “often no background check required.” The guns aren’t out of circulation permanently, they are available to anyone who will pay for them.
At a minimum, the loophole that allows a gun to be reported “destroyed” when, in fact, only one part (that identifies it) is destroyed, should be slammed shut. Now. That may mean police departments must pay for their destruction. The solution, I think, is to quit holding buybacks.
Susan Swope
Redwood City
Texas abortion rules
are upside down
Re: “Case shows abortion ban exemptions are shams” (Page A7, Dec. 13).
If the point of an abortion ban is to protect the life of the unborn child, what’s the point of the ban when the unborn child is dead or will not live?
Murdering a dead baby through abortion is not possible. This would be a punishment for a crime not committed. Have some sense, Texas people.
Eileen Hamper
Campbell
No call to be
embarrassed by U.S.
Re: “Biden administration bent on Mideast war” (Page A6, Dec. 14).
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Who’s ashamed to be a citizen of the United States?
Kursad Kiziloglu writes about the war and the use of Biden’s “Emergency Declaration.” Some of Kursad’s points are well-taken. However, then he stated, “I am ashamed to be a citizen of the United States.” You lost me then.
It seems that, in this country, you are free to leave at any time. Your words of being ashamed to be a citizen of the United States are reprehensible.
Don Holcomb
San Jose
