Readers share thoughts on guns and speed cameras
The absent discussion of the absent deterrent. The criminal justice system, society’s supposed disincentive against taking the life of another, is totally ineffectual as a deterrent against the worst kind of murder. The typical end game of the modern mass murderer is a self-inflicted suicide or death by cop, so he faces no disincentive and is never around to be prosecuted. This absence of any effective deterrent to mass murder is both the strongest reason for regulation of semi-automatic weapons and another example of fairly obvious stuff that the media fails to bother to mention and for that reason doesn’t even enter the national discussion.
JOHN B. HUBER, DEERFIELD TWP.
Stop enabling shooters, vote.
After the Oregon District mass killing, I, along with hundreds of fellow Daytonians, appealed to Gov. DeWine to, “Do Something.” Two simple words. And he did. He signed several new Ohio laws that make it easier for people to carry guns without permits, without training, into classrooms and on our streets without concern for the capability of these weapons.
And don’t expect help from the GOP-led Ohio legislature anytime soon. They already ignored the Ohio constitutional requirement that encourages free and fair elections. If you think they plan to act on guns, it will only be to endorse more like-minded 2nd Amendment, gun promoting “Do Nothing” representatives.
Finally, members of the Ohio delegation to the U.S. Congress accept “blood money” from the NRA and like-minded powerful political organizations. You hear them talk about guns, but politicians fear the loss of NRA blood money and power. Don’t just follow the money, follow the blood trail across the U.S.
You can “Do Something.” Vote to rid Ohio of representatives that promote guns, the 2nd Amendment above all other human rights, and replace them with representation the majority of us want from elected officials. THOMAS P. DOYLE,
Your recent coverage of Dayton’s traffic camera saga is unfortunately narrow.
The local officials who commented for the June 7 article seem to think state lawmakers and judges have no good reason to restrain camera enforcement. However, these programs are widely hated for excellent reasons. The Dayton program is a scam by which an outof-state company exercises local police authority in the form of junk mailings and then absconds with drivers’ Bureau of Motor Vehicle data. The company that owns Dayton’s speed camera equipment, OptoTraffic, has recently been purchased by an artificial intelligence company, Altumint, that appears to serve the debt collection, retail sales, and law enforcement sectors, among others. I would be very surprised if the value of this transaction for OptoTraffic did not rely on the data it acquired through its “partnerships” with Dayton and other towns such as New Miami. Second, the speed camera program has a deeply unequal impact on drivers here, because it invades the privacy of the home for anyone who shares an automobile with a family member. The mailing, borrowing the authority of our local police, amounts to a demand for the owner and other household drivers to search among their private and privileged communications, a demand in violation of the 4th Amendment meant to produce information the city can use to sue the owner or driver.
SARAH SIFF,