Tragedy prompts scary thoughts

George Zimmerman in Florida, Christopher Deedy in Hawaii. Common denominator: "righteous" individuals who have killed others with handguns.

Maybe the real problem is that their victims did not have guns themselves. If everyone was armed, maybe individuals like Zimmerman and Deedy would have been a little more careful in whom they confronted in the name of law and order.

Maybe the government should jump in and equalize the playing field. Maybe it should be the duty of every citizen to be fully armed. And maybe our government should help subsidize and supply the arming of our citizenry. Maybe then our arms industry would not be so dependent on selling arms and other military hardware to other nations.

American guns for American people. Then we would not have to worry about other countries using the arms we have sold them against us. We would simply have to concern ourselves with Americans killing or defending themselves against fellow Americans.

What scares me a little in writing this is thinking of how many Americans might actually agree with this.

Roman Leverenz
Aliamanu

Thanks goodness for newspapers

Ho hum, it’s Wednesday and the Zimmerman trial is going on and on and on,with the verdict from Saturday being discussed by all the major TV news networks.

It’s a turn off. We know the verdict, like it or not.

Rehashing the trial over and over and over makes me stop watching the news during dinner, but instead turn to an old friend, the Star-Advertiser, with its current and recent news of Hawaii and the world.

The saturation point has been reached. Now I am back to reading the newspaper!

Jim Delmonte
Hawaii Kai

Defense pay cuts unreasonable

Amen to Ken Jordan’s letter ("Support civilian defense workers," Star-Advertiser, July 18).

To elaborate further, from a financial management perspective, regarding execution of Defense Department (DoD) budgets:

» What is the real dollar amount of the U.S. debt?

At any time, there is a 6-year accumulation of millions, if not billions or trillions, of dollars in govern- ment accounts that should be returned to the U.S. Treasury.

Gao.gov contains congressional reports and testimonies citing serious problems in DoD financial management since 1995.

» Every employee is responsible to ensure that funds are spent in mission-critical areas and not, for example, replacing window blinds that are not defective (just dirty).

» DoD civilians have not received an annual economic pay raise in three years, and now must take a 20 percent cut of weekly pay for 11 weeks.

The local media dismissed the 20 percent pay cut, saying that it could have been 22 weeks instead.Really?

Kelly Sedlacek
Aiea

Debate over gays wastes energy

Can we please get this gay marriage issue behind us?

I am reminded of my brother’s struggle with his gay son. I have seven brothers and sisters and we grew up in the South. A family reunion was planned and my brother implied to his son to just sorta stay in the background. My nephew said, "Listen, Dad, I am who I am and you either love me or you don’t."

It was an awakening moment for my brother and he embraced his son and said, "Of course I love you, son, and I will always be proud of you." They ended up being the very best of friends in addition to being father and son.

Please, can’t we stop wasting energy, time, money and do the right thing now?

Charlie Baker
Lawai, Kauai

Kudos for article on state of Islam

Thank you for running the article on Islam by Yasmine Bahrani ("This Ramadan, just what has happened to Islam?", Star-Advertiser, July 14). Very, very informative. So badly needed.

Kioni Dudley
Kapolei