Letters

Editor,

Misguided and invasive ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids continue to harm Bay Area neighborhoods at this writing. In an alarming number of cases, ICE "police” have arrested and detained (and in some cases, deported) innocent, hard-working individuals who are only trying to stake out a future for themselves and their families. Perhaps the ICE could better serve our community if Operation Return to Sender was reconstituted as Operation Return to School. Under this new mandate, all ICE agents and their supervisors would be rounded up and returned to the nearest classroom where they would be re-introduced to the Fourth and Fifth Amendments and instructed clearly and concisely about what is right and what is wrong in dealing with our individual rights according to the constitution of our country.

Michael Traynor

Burlingame

Time to withdraw

Editor,

The president has vetoed the $124 billion war-funding bill. The bill has been portrayed in the media as a serious challenge to Bush. Not really. The bill offered him $4 billion more than he requested for the war, and although it does set a goal of removing combat troops by the end of March 2008, it would have allowed the President to leave tens of thousands of troops behind.

The President accused Congress of trying to dictate to the Generals on the ground with this bill. Not so, the bill made a timid attempt to hold the Bush and Maliki administrations accountable for their policies. The ever-mounting death toll in Iraq indicates that some accountability for the people in charge is justified. Congress should refuse to capitulate to President Bush on his war policy. The people of this country and Iraq, and U.S. troops are counting on Congress. They must stop funding this war and fund a safe and immediate withdrawal.

Betsy Strazzarino

San Bruno

Deliberate distortion

of the Bill of Rights

Editor,

In Keith Kreitman’s column "The great American shootout” in the April 28 edition of the Daily Journal, he calls the NRA an "enemy of the people.”

Since its founding in 1871, the NRA has been the leader in safe and responsible firearms training. The National Safety Council reports that firearm accident are at the lowest number since it began keeping records in 1913, when the population was one-fourth of today’s.

The NRA has always been and still is a major source of law enforcement training and a strong supporter of tough penalties for crimes involving firearms.

Is this the definition of "enemy of the people?”

In WWII, the NRA’s program for American citizens to donate arms to England so that it’s "legally” unarmed citizens could be prepared for an expected Nazi invasion was praised by President Truman, who encouraged the organization to continue what they were doing. According to law enforcement data, an armed citizen prevents or stops a crime every 13 seconds.

As for the "misinterpretation” of the Second Amendment, it needs no interpretation. It is one clear sentence that states "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” a word the dictionary defines as "violate, enclose or trespass.” In the entire Constitution, it is the only place the word appears. This is no accident, since both James Madison, regarded as the Father of the Constitution, and Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, both believed the Second Amendment to be the most important in the Bill of Rights.

Without it, the people would be unable to preserve any other rights, if our government should ever violate and turn them into empty promises, something they had just experienced as citizen-colonists of England.

Read Adolf Hitler’s praise of his program to disarm the German people, which he was sure the civilized would rush to follow on the road to peace and harmony.

The "misinterpretation” is the deliberate distortion by people like Senator Feinstein and the Clintons, who don’t believe in the Bill of Rights, which they took an oath to support and defend.

Edward E. Peltier

San Mateo

Bush should be

held responsible

Editor,

In President Bush’s veto speech, he criticized Congress for commanding the troops 6,000 miles away from Iraq. Doesn’t he know he is the Commander in Chief and his address is also in Washington D.C., as are the addresses of George Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and the other creators of the quagmire in Iraq?

The only difference is that Congress (Democrats and Republicans alike) has come up with a responsible plan to end the war in Iraq. It’s time for Bush to be held accountable for his dismal performance. We can no longer wait for him to retire. Way too many lives are at stake.

Clearly, the only way to restore common sense to the White House is to vote for one of the highly qualified Democrats running for the office in 2008. If you haven’t done it yet, register; then vote.

Bob Stine

San Mateo

Gas prices are

government ploy

Editor,

How can gasoline companies continue to raise their prices when they are making exorbitant profits? No other companies are allowed to raise prices as frequently, especially when they post so much profit. This is just another government ploy to make the public conform to what they want us to do. The government should have been demanding vehicles give better gas mileage or other means of power long ago. The government officials must have their share of the gasoline company stocks to allow this to happen. What is happening is the profits for other companies are dwindling because all our money is being spent on gasoline for our vehicles. People are unable to shop and purchase as they once did because all the extra money is going towards the continually rising gasoline price gouging.

Emil Picchi

San Mateo