Letters to the editor How shooters are able to acquire their guns HAVE YOUR SAY

Regarding the story “How did shooter get his guns?” (Page 1A, Nov. 16), the Tehama County shooter got his guns because they are manufactured by the truckload and sold every day all across America.

This massive supply ensures that every person who wants rapid-fire guns and large-capacity ammo clips can acquire them. That is, people with or without mental illness; people with or without mental health care benefits; people with or without criminal records; people who are on or are not on government watch lists; people with or without known motives to kill; people who hoard guns in private or shoot them nightly in their front yard.

Everybody can get guns because there are so many guns to get, legally or illegally. It is clearly impossible to keep guns out of the hands of “the wrong people.”

The only solution is to ban the manufacture and sale of guns/ammo designed for mass killing, and make owning mass killing machines illegal.

— Laura Smith, Millbrae

The whining of an overly spoiled generation

Once more, millennials express their sense of self-entitlement, demanding the older generations continue to sacrifice for the millennials’ benefit. Laura Clark’s “outrage” (“Yes, please build in my backyard,” Page 1A, Nov. 13) is nothing more than the whining of an overly spoiled generation. The true outrage comes from her complaint that others will not change the quality of their life in order to meet the wants of millennials.

In the times of older generations, when there was no room to raise a family, we moved elsewhere. When there were no jobs, we moved to find work; earnings low, we lived meagerly; space rare, we lived tightly together. Yet, we never demanded others give up their quality of life for our benefit.

To the millennials, I say: If you want a place where there Letters of up to 150 words will be considered for publication. All letters must include a full name, address and daytime phone number, plus any affiliations that would place your opinion in context. The full letter policy, and additional letters, are available at mercurynews.com/opinion. Send letters for The Mercury News to: Email: mnletters@bayareanewsgroup.com

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Suite 800, San Jose, CA 95113 is space to raise a family, then go seek that and make it your own, but don’t demand that we sacrifice for your continuing selfishness.

— Tull Jordan, San Jose

The extent of the GOP scam of taxpayers?

The fastest thing in the universe is the speed of light. Nothing can go faster than 186,282 miles per second. That adds up to 5.88 trillion miles per year. At that speed, light from the nearest star, 25 trillion miles away, takes 4.25 years to reach us.

The national debt exceeds $20 trillion. That is $633,612 dollars per second, 3.4 times the speed of light. Interest charges alone on our national credit card amount to $215,000 million this year. The Republican tax plan would deepen the debt $1.7 billion by lowering taxes for big corporations and the richest people. Their plan’s debt would go even deeper, except they are also raising taxes on middle-class earners and revoking the financial obligations for affordable health care.

How will this astronomical debt be repaid? Republicans plan to cut the Social Security and Medicare entitlements that we have paid into all our lives. All this damage so the patrons who finance Republican senators and congressional representatives can collect more corporate dividends and pay less tax. That means less revenue to keep vital government services functioning.

Looks like the fastest thing in the universe is the scam that has gotten taxpayers to vote Republican.

— Bruce Joffe, Piedmont

Does big-tent rhetoric permit statements of fact?

Rabbi Naat Ezray and Maha ElGenaidi call Robert Spencer a “fomenter of Islamophobia,” someone who “peddles in hate” (Letters, Nov. 15). They also write that our community has room “for many political viewpoints.” I wonder if their virtue-signaling, big-tent rhetoric permits statements such as the fact that in the past 30 days there were 110 Islamic attacks in 18 countries, in which 1,083 people were killed and 904 injured. This is a true statement, and hardly an atypical month ( thereligionofpeace.com).

Perhaps if Ezray and ElGenaidi allow such realities to be part of the basic dialogue, there would be a better chance that we could really “know one another,” which, as they claim, is “the only solution to the hatred in our world.”

— Larry Yelowitz, Sunnyvale

Rent control won’t solve San Jose’s problems

Rent control is a very bad idea for San Jose (and any other place). Rent controls slowly reduce incentives for landlords to improve existing properties and build new units, exacerbating the housing shortage.

Sky-high rents are a result of the tech-fueled real estate bubble and, as they say, the solution to high prices is high prices: Higher rents will underwrite more construction and renovation. More available units will reduce the housing shortage, which will naturally slow the astronomical increase in rents. At some point we will reach an equilibrium where rents and incomes achieve parity, which is the best we can hope for.

For now, we could tax ourselves as a community to support lower income renters and stop unreasonably limiting further development, but laying all the expense on the landlords will achieve the exact opposite of what’s intended.

— Chris Wiegel, Santa Clara

Opposing bigotry helps everyone get along

I was pleased to see the jointly signed letter from Maha ElGanaidi of the Islamic Networks Group and Rabbi Nat Ezray, expressing their disagreement with bigotry in any form.

One of the miracles about the good old USA is that the overwhelming majority of us, or our ancestors, have come from everywhere on earth, from every ethnicity, race or religion imaginable. What has been the result? We get along reasonably well, whereas in so many other parts of the world they’re still killing each other over those same differences.

— Leonard W. Williams, Sunnyvale