Northland letters to the editor

Seeking Benghazi truth

Republicans on the House Benghazi Committee faulted the Obama administration recently in a report on the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya.

An ambassador of the U.S. and three others were killed. No U.S. forces were allowed to help fight off the attack because authorization to move was not given.

There is an adage, “The wheels of justice grind very slowly, but grind very fine.” That means it make take a while, but the truth with be found. It is the opposite of a lynch mob.

Party politics should not be part of the process when fact-finding for the truth is required. Four years of untold finger-pointing in the U.S. House is not my idea of serving my best interests.

Richard Blaisdell

Kansas City

Guns, government

The Democrats in both houses held their infantile sit-ins and filibusters, demanding that we impose additional controls on the sale of semi-automatic weapons to law-abiding citizens. This is the height of hypocrisy.

Both corrupt establishment parties in Congress have been absolutely silent and feigning ignorance while the government has spent more than $ 1.4 billion arming more than 200,000 federal civilian employees with military grade assault weapons, hollow point bullets, night-vision goggles, propane cannons, liquid explosives, meals ready to eat and more, and granted them arrest and shoot to kill powers.

This reminded me of President Barack Obama’s speech, when he said he was going to have “a civilian force that would be as or more powerful than our military.”

Among the agencies with this new power: Health and Human Services, The Smithsonian Institution, the Internal Revenue Service, Veterans Affairs, Animal and Plant Health Inspection, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, Small Business Administration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Energy Department, the Education Department and several public universities.

This is the kind of stuff that should scare every one. Police powers belong to the cities and states, not to the federal government

All of this information is available at OpenTheBooks.com a repository of public spending records.

Ricci Ballesteros

Kansas City

Fewer guns theory

From all the information I take in, for every 200 or so criminal shootings there may be one “good guy” story where violence was stopped. So much for the “good guy” theory.

When one is confronted outside the home by a person with a gun, do you really think that the perpetrator is going to allow you to reach for, unholster and aim your firearm before you are dead or wounded? So much for the self-defense theory.

When confronted by government action that you believe to be an overreach, are these issues better solved at the ballot box or by subverting the rule of law in armed confrontation? Do you really think you can win? So much for the government intrusion theory.

What then is the rationale for flooding our streets with guns? All of the comparative studies demonstrate fewer shootings and fewer deaths with fewer guns.

Ed Papacena

Kansas City

Guns, terrorists

I appreciate the difficulty of getting the wording just right in order to pass effective gun-control measures. But surely many of these legislators can’t see the forest for the trees here.

It is not about gun control. It is about terrorists.

The gun issues will be with us until there are no more fingers to pull triggers. Terrorists, on the other hand, can be eliminated.

Let’s get on it.

Stephanie A. Henry

Kansas City

This story was originally published July 13, 2016 at 8:58 AM with the headline "Northland letters to the editor."