Dear Editor,
Thank you for all your very informative articles. It is because of your eye-opening articles that I now see our country and the world with new light.

The other day I read and heard over the radio about “Simultaneous Everywhere,” a police exercise. What a name! I imagine that the name was chosen to instill fear into the populace of which as I pondered a little it was a little disconcerting thinking about all the citizens whose lives were traumatized due to this exercise. It would be interesting to find out how many more enemies the police made during these raids. I know our Police Department is trying its best to keep law and order in a society which seems to be falling apart daily.

But I wonder: is this really the best use of our resources. If the Police Department was a business, would they have used precious resources to conduct this exercise when there were more pressing matters at hand? If we consider for a moment, they retrieved illegal guns, bullets, drugs and a couple illegals. You mean that’s it? People are still falling left and right in broad daylight. After all the resources spent, people are still fearful of being the next victim of a stabbing or daylight shooting. Could we have used those resources for intelligence gathering on these shootings? Would it not be better for the government to relax the gun laws put in place by our European masters?

In this modern age with criminals all around us and Guatemala on the brink of invasion, would it not be in society’s best interest to allow its citizens the right to arm themselves? We the people should be very, very concerned as it’s just a matter of time before these same draconian laws come to bite us.

Who will be the one who rents a new home only to later find out someone hid a gun in the roof or a criminal hides his gun in your car, only to find out about it at some worthless checkpoint. How about sitting on the bus only to find out while being led away to Hattieville that someone hid his gun in your overhead compartment?

I am surprised people don’t break down mentally with all the scenarios that could have us locked up for three months while we try to prove our innocence. I know those who are in charge don’t change the gun laws for fear of its citizenry, but really, if they are doing the right thing the citizens will protect them.

Only a sadistic government would be scared of its citizens bearing arms. Look at the U.S.A. as an example of a government becoming fearful of its own citizens and you will understand more clearly. Allowing citizens to bear arms only strengthens the government, not bring it down. They can easily increase the penalties for criminals having guns and still allow average citizens to have guns to protect themselves, as it’s obvious that the only ones not having problems getting guns are the criminals, while innocent civilians who have a hard time obtaining a permit go to jail for trying to protect their families. The criminal element should be the only ones who should have the right to bear arms taken away.

Now the drugs. Would it not be better to legalize drugs and open treatment centres instead? Consider, can you really stop someone from using drugs if they have already made up their minds to do so? Is using precious resources to incarcerate them really the best thing for the country and that person?

If just these two laws were rethought and applied differently, would it not free up our Police Department to do more in protecting our people? The Police Department is overworked and understaffed, not to mention under-budgeted, as it is. How much more can be done to many more laws that make criminals out of its citizenry just to appease those in power?

We the people can choose the laws we wish to govern ourselves with…or can we?  As a final note to Christians, the Ten Commandments were written to keep us faithful to The Most High and to keep us from harming each other… how did guns and drugs get in there?

(P.S.: My eyes are not the only ones being opened, as I learned the other day that a lot of my friends are influenced by your newspaper.)

Sincerely,
Andy Jones