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US needs to examine its mental health as a country
Every time there is a mass shooting, like the recent one in Uvalde, there is always an outcry to examine the “mental state” or the “mental health” of the perpetrator. This is completely mistaken. What we should be asking for is an examination of the mental state or mental health of a country where more value is put on our “right” to easily obtain armaments than on the lives of innocent children.
Should this be surprising? From the time the first white Europeans stepped ashore four centuries ago, America has been a land of guns. Guns have been used for all kinds of apparently noble purposes: intimidating and controlling black slaves, killing off indigenous Indians, silencing native Hawaiians, enforcing frontier justice, virtually wiping out native wildlife such as bison and native birds, and on ad nauseum.
Guns and violence are as American as the flag, mother and apple pie, it was once famously said. Why should we want to change that now? Our love of guns and the gun culture is proving – though this is hard to believe – even more intractable than America’s four centuries of systemic racism.
To its credit, Hawaii has at least had the courage to pass a handful of mild, common-sense firearms restrictions. But far away in mainland “Amerika,” the NRA, the arms manufacturers and the heartless, gutless Republicans rule. And they have no intention of changing. Unless we can find a way around the insanity supported by this unholy triumvirate, America will continue to be a mentally sick nation, and a sad embarrassment to the rest of the world.
John Kitchen
Kailua-Kona
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No tax relief is a disgrace
The Hawaii County $785 million budget adding 88 people, is a 28% increase over the current year and a disgrace. If I demanded a 28% wage increase, my employer would fire me.
More disgraceful is no tax relief even though there is a $6 million surplus that the council has no idea how to spend. Thanks to three unsuccessful council members, Holeka Inaba, Tim Richards and Sue Lee Loy that fought for tax relief but unfortunately were overruled by a fumbling council majority that couldn’t decide whether homeowners or commercial should get the relief, so they agreed no one should get tax relief … Really?
The council had no problem approving $100,000 slush fund for each and a $22,500 increase in their individual expense accounts. Really.
Ray Mears
Kailua-Kona
US has a tolerance for mass killing
Brooding over the recent mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, and knowing that there have been and continue to be many similar shootings in the United States, I thought of a couple of 19th century mass slaughters in this country. One was of buffalo, where herds were reduced by millions mostly by sport shooters. Another was of pigeons, where, as described in James Fenimore Cooper’s “The Pioneers,” such numbers were shot from great flocks in the sky that they completely obscured the ground they fell on.
The puzzle that stands out for me in the spectacle of mass killings of human beings in the United States is the behavior of the voting population. Election after election, voters do not insist that predominantly people who will outlaw civilian purchase of military weapons get into office. Election after election, new congresses have refused to outlaw such weaponry in the hands of civilians.
It is unmistakable that there is a tolerance of mass killings in this country. To bring up the spectacle of animal slaughter in the 19th century is not inappropriate. Just why the United States seems to tolerate mass killing is an issue for historians and sociologists. For most of us, we might be firm in insisting that people get into office that are concerned to take the country in a sane direction.
Mike Keller
Kailua-Kona
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