Letters to the Editor for Feb. 10, 2015

Pike's priorities are wrong It's incomprehensible that for Rep. Liz Pike, R-Camas, the first item on her agenda at the start of this legislative session was guns. Our representatives are in contempt of court over school funding and she was one of the local Republicans who killed transportation funding for our county. Now she appears to come out for continued and increased air pollution by Clark County manufacturers. She is clearly in favor of small government, which to her means no laws and regulations for local businesses and manufacturers. For some reason, she wants us to return to the wild, wild west and not worry about dirty air and openly blazing guns. It gets confusing what she is exactly for when it comes to laws and regulations. It seems like funding schools, roads and addressing climate change is a low priority for her. Gale Beagle, Vancouver The public has spoken on gun control Deaths by guns will finally surpass deaths by cars in the US for the first time this year. This according to a new report just released by the CDC. Even in the face of such facts, the gun lobby has filed a lawsuit in federal court against our state's new I-594 law, which requires for the first time background checks on all gun purchases in Washington. As a retired surgical trauma nurse, mother and taxpayer, I find this very disturbing. I, along with many Washington citizens, worked diligently to pass I-594 this past November. With all our efforts and hard work, I-594 is now in effect. We are the first state in the nation where citizens voted into law a requirement for mandatory background checks for every gun sold in the state -- at shops, gun shows, online and in personal sales. The majority of voters (59 percent) voted for I-594. That is a wide margin of support in an otherwise divided nation. Now, we citizens will have our tax dollars used to defend the new law in court. I-594 and universal background checks are the law of our state and the law needs to stand as is. We, the voting public, have spoken. Joanne Pinelli, Camas A wake up call to America The world that surrounds us is growing more dangerous day by day. Whether it's foreign terrorists, enemy state actors, Mexican drug cartels or domestic criminals, threats American's face are huge and expanding. America's police community is well aware every medium to large city has a well established drug funded sex trafficking Mexican drug cartel presence. The DOJ admits Mexican drug gangs are in more than 1,000 U.S. cities. 20,000 gangs with around 1 million members are operating coast to coast. In 2013, over 36,000 hard core illegal aliens were arrested for over 88,000 crimes including murder, rape, robbery, sex trafficking etc. They were all to be deported and Obama's ICE authorities dumped them back onto our streets to commit more heinous crimes (reported by Center For Immigration Studies). Terrorists have been aware for over 25 years our southern border is so porous and unprotected, it's like crossing the street to get into the U.S. From 1999 to 2010, over 6,000 special interest illegal aliens were apprehended crossing into the U.S. Authorities admit at least three were linked to terrorism -- one a suspected Al-Qaida bomb maker. How many ISIS members are crossing our southern border? Chuck Miller, Camas

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