Letter's to the Editor - WOOHOO!

Regarding a bar whose license got suspended...

Ad hominem attack, party of one?

Marco -

I'm an NRA member, a life member of the Second Amendment Foundation, and have hung around the gun community for a couple of decades now.

Based on that, I think I can say with some authority that most folks and organizations in that area of interest not only oppose random urban discharges, but specifically warning shots - for a variety of safety and tactical reasons.

The truth of the issue is that neither you nor I know the circumstances of the firearms discharge - which could be anything from the owner of the bar fending off an assailant/rapist as she closed up shop to go home...to involving mad cackling.

Given that calling for aid or calling 911 is counted *against* a bar owner with the liquor board, a positive incentive isn't exactly created by the current system of "doomed if you do, doomed if you don't" - rather, the current system *encourages* trying to sober up a drunk yourself w/o assistance and trying not to get caught. A far more positive and effective approach would be to *reward* bar owners for correctly calling 911 or for medical assistance.

Being put out of business for six months is something that really ought to require a hearing before a judge that's accountable to voters - not an administrative board that is questionably accountable to anyone. It's not quite a death penalty for a business, but it's close - that should mean those pressing for it need to work a little harder than "a bad thing happened near this business".

Finally, yes. If folks want to drink themselves to oblivion (as long as they don't insist on taking others with them) their fate is *not* the business of government.

If you, or I, or anyone else wants to save all the alcoholics or addicts in the world (or go about pursuing a variety of other worthwhile causes) - then let us set up shop as a private charity or foundation and get about the business of fundraising and organizing (you know, that odd practice of folks giving time and cash *voluntarily* to support a cause they believe in, rather than spending coerced tax dollars).

Government, clumsy and lumbering behemoth that it is, is rarely a precise tool to cure social ills - many of which are so embedded in human nature as to be incurable.

Finally, the right is no more monolithic than the left - and arguably is evolving in a more libertarian or classically conservative (ask me again in ten years, it's early days) direction than the theo-conservativism of the religious right.

GC