Hang Your Hat: October 8, 2015

A different view of “Seeing the world through a good-guy’s eyes-as I see it.”

TR Kerth’s use of the word “good” in the September 10 edition of Sun City News was incorrect by anyone’s interpretation. 

The definition of good means, “morally excellent, virtuous, righteous, pious, satisfactory in quality, proper.” To use the word “good” as an example of a person who executes others because of hurt feelings or someone who decides to shoot innocent people in a theater or train is a gross misuse of the word. These individuals are not good nor did they think they were good. They knew exactly what they were doing, revenge, taking out their frustrations or making a name for themselves, it was not good.

I am also not sure of the accuracy of the statistics Mr. Kerth used in the statements regarding “better odds of injuring or killing your grand-kid than it does stopping an intruder,” or “one of the 500,000 guns stolen each year by a bad guy.” I have searched and not found these numbers.

If someone is truly good as Webster defines it then the owner of a firearm will have it either unloaded, trigger locked or in a safe so the gun cannot be handled by a grandkid or stolen by a bad guy. You don’t keep a loaded unlocked firearm in your “underwear drawer.”

Mr. Kerth further states “and even though the statistics (here we go with statistics again) will tell you that countries with more guns (like America) end up with a lot more crime than countries with fewer guns.” Apparently Mr. Kerth forgot about Switzerland. 

The country of Switzerland has the most guns of any county in the world but extremely low crime. The reason is simple, every household in Switzerland must, by law, have a firearm. Each male is trained in the proper use of a firearm and it’s a family tradition to pass the responsibility down to each generation. The citizens are Switzerland’s army. That’s why Germany did not invade during WWII. Hitler considered it, but his military staff knew it was not possible.

I agree that is was a very heroic act for the 3 gentlemen to stop the bad guy in the French train but all 3 are thankful that the bad guys gun jammed which is why they were able to overtake him. If not, probably all 3 would have been shot along with many others.

Yes I agree that “it’s time for the good guys to do that here in America,” but maybe there are good guys who have passed all the federal security checks, spent several hours of class room and range instruction and are morally, mentally sound. This is not a description of the supposed “good guys” in the article.

As the story goes, if a bad guy with a weapon comes at you and you don’t believe in prayer or guns, the first thing you will do is pray that someone shows up with a gun before the bad guy shoots.

Jim May
Sun City

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I once presented my ideas for delivering Lifestyles and was met with incredulous stares. Well maybe now the time is right: I would like to see everyone with computers use them to read Lifestyle, which is already online.

I believe that about 70% of Sun City residents have internet access and can easily read our Lifestyle online. For the rest, they can arrange to pick up a copy at the Prairie Lodge or have it mailed to them. (I don’t think the Association should pay to have it mailed to everyone. This is a waste of our money.) For those who complain about having to pay to have it mailed, they should remember that I already pay $42.95 a month for my internet access with other residents also paying varying amounts.

Doing it this way would be advantageous to the environment in three ways: fewer copies of the Lifestyles printed, a saving of resources; fewer copies going into recycling plus a savings of manpower and the landfills, and finally, no more plastic bags hanging on doorknobs to pollute the environment!

We still have time to enter the digital age and help save the environment at the same time.

Esther Bell

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1. After working in the health care field for 30 years and having several senior pets “put to sleep.” I appreciated Chris La Pelusa’s article about his dog’s end of life struggles. For years I have said that when my time comes, don’t take me to the hospital, take me to the vet! It will be that or I will have to move to Oregon.

2. I hope the ad hoc committee reviewing the financials with First Response will take note of how money is paid out. I recently had my mail forwarded while out of state and did not get my quarterly statement to pay my association fees. I talked with Jennifer Lupo and was told that those statements have “do not forward” above the name and address. She stated that she has tried to get the company to take that off the statements, but they won’t. For every one that is returned there is a fee ol $1.50. In January because oi “snowbirds” 1,000 of these were returned! What a Waste of our money.

Donna McCormack
Neighborhood 3

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