Sounding off: Gun safety, Roe v. Wade, Trump, Mastriano, gas prices

Gun safety shouldn’t be a partisan issue

Many Pennsylvania Republican lawmakers seem to care more about appeasing a minority of their base than protecting their own constituents’ lives. Republicans have persistently blocked and obstructed any legislation or even debate on gun safety bills in Harrisburg. Afraid of a small but vocal portion of their party, they pander to this fringe minority while gun deaths continue to mount.

Recently, the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee stalled four commonsense safety bills. They also butchered bills that would ban anyone under 21 from purchasing assault rifles, turning them into permitless concealed carry bills that the governor has already vetoed.

In the Senate, Republicans have blocked legislation to create red flag laws and universal background checks. This GOP continues to reject these policies despite their popularity among Pennsylvanians. According to recent polling following the school shooting in Uvalde, 89.1% support universal background checks, 79.9% support red flag laws and 78.5% support age restrictions for assault rifle purchases.

This is not a partisan issue: It’s a matter of our public safety.

These lawmakers fail their communities and their fundamental responsibility to protect us. Gun violence, including suicides, is destroying rural and urban communities alike. We need our elected officials to act now—to prioritize our interests, each other’s lives, instead of bowing to the outlandish demands of a fractional and reactionary segment of the electorate. Republicans have defaulted on their constitutional obligations to voters. We can no longer afford to foot the bill.

Ed Massarsky

Collier

Roe v. Wade’s flaws are many

What’s being lost in all the vitriol following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade is a growing awareness that the original 1973 opinion was deeply flawed. In Roe, an activist Warren court created a Maginot Line in the sand that, far from settling a dispute, divided the nation.

A decade ago, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg called Roe faulty because it rested on an implied 14th Amendment right to privacy, rather than explicitly affirming women’s rights over reproduction. The court then eroded this right to privacy by asserting the states’ competing interest in protecting “potential human life.”

Roe “stopped momentum on the side of change,” Ginsberg said at a 2013 Chicago law school forum. Ginsburg would have preferred settling the issue as part of a process that included the state legislatures and the courts.

Absent Roe, perhaps abortion would have become just one of many reproductive medical options available to women. Instead, the court’s liberal judicial activism fabricated what became the epitome of female emancipation to one side, and the equivalent of murder to the other, with neither willing to give ground.

Like the Liberty Bell, Roe was a cherished symbol of freedom that cracked when it was barely out of the box. Tragically, it ushered in a half-century of divisiveness from which our nation may never recover.

Peter Busowski

Jeannette

Trump is a RINO

Donald Trump is many things: Former president, sore loser, con man, seditionist? Add RINO to the list, as in Republican In Name Only.

Consider that before he ran for president in 2016, Trump’s political leanings were ambiguous at best. Trump seized on the right wing because he saw it as an opportunity to capitalize on disaffected conservative white voters who recoiled at eight years under President Obama and possibly four of Hillary Clinton. It’s not unreasonable to wonder what a Trump candidacy might have looked like if he was following a conservative such as George W. Bush. Trump identifies an audience and tells it what it wants to hear.

By his actions throughout his presidency, through the riot he fomented Jan. 6 and ever since, Trump spits on the Constitution he swore to uphold. Trump is all about Trump. Laws, conservative principles and people are just pawns in his game. Even the conservative justices he appointed to the Supreme Court are there for the greater glory of Trump. Whether he can articulate any legal position or doctrine coherently is dubious.

Trump does know how to bully, and he ran roughshod over the spineless jellyfish in his party. But as the truth comes out about his election lies, the walls of justice are closing in on the straw-haired con man. It’s time for conservative voters to dump Trump and find new leaders who respect the law and the American system.

Know Donald Trump for the phony that he is, was and ever will be.

Dan Skantar

North Fayette

Does Jan. 6 committee think Trump could win in 2024?

The Jan. 6 committee is really strange. I think they are trying to make President Donald Trump look bad so he can’t run for president in 2024. Everyone knew there could be trouble at the rally because of intelligence and the large crowd size. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund pleaded with Lt. Gen. Walter E. Piatt, director of the Army Staff, and House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving to send in the National Guard, but they initially refused because of “optics.”

Two days after the riot, I watched Trump’s entire Jan. 6 speech, and I heard nothing in it promoting violence. Trump said, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

Trump lost the 2020 election by 7 million popular votes. What makes the committee think he could win in 2024, unless it’s because President Joe Biden is so bad with the economy that anyone could beat him?

My wallet loved Trump. My wallet doesn’t care for Biden at all. I guess Nancy Pelosi doesn’t care about my wallet, just about her party winning.

Susan Stiles

North Huntingdon

Mastriano’s dangerous plans for Pa.

William Penn, the founder of our commonwealth, was an advocate for religious and personal freedom for all people who came to live here. As opposed to Doug Mastriano, the current Republican candidate for governor, whose inflammatory comments have appeared in newspapers all over the state, including his promise to overturn all statewide election results he disagrees with, his refusal to allow abortions to save a mother’s life, calling separation of church and state “a myth,” saying we should be fearful of Muslims being elected to Congress, and his hateful anti-LGBTQ remarks.

Mastriano has spoken at political events sponsored by right-wing activists known for their antisemitic rhetoric. Mastriano has told supporters God told him to run for governor, because he’s the candidate who can save Pennsylvania from its descent into evil. Many Pennsylvanians believe it’s extremely dangerous for political candidates to insert their religious beliefs into politics.

These are the reasons why Mastriano is feared.

Frances Weiss

White Oak

Could gas station owners drop prices?

I could not help but notice the gas price difference recently between Sam’s Club and all other stations along Route 30 from Jeannette through Latrobe. For the past few weeks, Sam’s was selling gas for $4.45 to $4.55 while everyone else was at $4.75 to $4.89.

I am the last person to give Joe Biden any credit, but it seems that he may be onto something when he said gas station dealers could drop the prices but have been reluctant to do so. I’m sure I do not see the big picture, but it seems the public is being fleeced.

Jerry Sherbondy Sr.

Mt. Pleasant Township

Let’s blame Harry Truman

It seems fashionable to blame a former president for this country’s current woes, so I blame Harry Truman.

“Truman?” you might say, but let me defend my position for a moment.

If not for Truman, we might not have nuclear threats. When he gave the go-ahead to bomb Japan (twice!), other countries decided to arm similarly. So the fact that enemies like Russia, China and North Korea have bombs that could result in the self-destruction of this world rests on his shoulders.

Speaking of North Korea, there probably wouldn’t be that worrisome issue had Truman not fired general of the Army and all-around good guy Douglas MacArthur, who wanted to stop the creation of the rogue nation. I think that was our first step in showing weakness to China (Thanks, Harry!).

The former haberdasher was no friend of the environment, either. He chose a people-first agenda without considering the long-term consequences for the planet. His silence on the right to abortion reminds me of the wishy-washy nature of his administration.

Industrial development and national growth are fine if you ignore the “big” issues. His supporters said “Give ’em Hell, Harry,” and maybe he did.

Ed Klein

Shanksville