Send gun violence medical bills to the National Rifle Association

Guns in America- opinion echo letter published in The Post and Courier, a Charleston South Carolina newspaper.

It’s a tragedy more than 23,800 Americans committed suicide, another 14,500 were murdered or killed accidentally, and 67,000 were injured by guns in 2015, according to the National Library of Medicine.

Maybe the National Rifle Association should pay the medical bills.

It’s a tragedy that, unlike our ability to make cars or anything else safer, we have been unwilling to legislate safer guns or safer laws for possessing guns or handling them. Prayer doesn’t seem to be working.

Blaming “mental health” is a red herring. The mentally ill are the ones committing suicide with guns, not shooting others.

America is a diverse nation of immigrants. By focusing our rhetoric on ethnicity or religion or whatever, we only cave in to our enemies’ efforts to divide and conquer us.

We need to change the language we use. “White supremacists” hate Americans who happen to be Latinos or other ethnicities. In their hatred, they deliberately kill Americans.

In my mind, if you hate any part of America enough to try to kill or injure any group of Americans, you are anti-American and certainly not a patriot.

Those who are anti-American are our enemy by definition. Perhaps “anti-American terrorist” or “enemy combatant” would be a more appropriate title. 

From Tom Balliet, Serenity Point Drive, Bluffton, South Carolina

South Carolina echo opinion identifies Russia as an enemy of America

Articles about Trump and Russia at this link.

Opinion letter:

‘Useful fool’ Trump is there for Putin~ The Island Packet

It’s now clear, proven! Russia won the U.S. presidency for Trump.

Russian Hacking and Influence in the U.S. Election

OPINION ~ I remember as a junior high student 60 years ago, a mailer explained the Cold War, how democracy and communism would co-exist. Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev had famously pounded his shoe at the U.N. General Assembly in 1960 and was quoted “we will bury you” in the struggle of ideologies.

In 1991 the Soviet states collapsed, ethnic fractures and imbedded corruption the cause. “Perestroika” brought a movement toward free elections. It didn’t last. Putin gained absolute power and Russia’s shot at democratic rule failed. Now in power for 14 years, Russia remains a failed state, with oil reserves an asset along with nuclear weapons.

Brash and cunning, Putin, schooled in godless KGB tactics, worked to regain lost status. A master of propaganda, he employed thousands to use social media, virtually given over by our media giants. He built a sophisticated campaign to damage Hillary Clinton and promote Donald Trump. It worked better than expected. Trump won the electoral vote. Donald, the endless self-promoting con man with financial ties to Russia, became president of the United States. Now the “useful fool” was in place to wreak havoc on the world’s most successful democracy.

A classic demagogue, Trump blames all problems on his predecessors, attacks the press, puts incompetents in his cabinet from which he demands absolute loyalty, and lashes out at opposing voices.

A brilliant strategy delivered Trump to the KGB spymaster. Now, racist speech and lies spew daily from the people’s house, formerly a symbol of a welcoming and just America. 

From Jim Kauppi, Bluffton South Carolina