Guns were to blame for Texas, Mr Trump
PRESIDENT Donald Trump said the Texas gunman was ‘a very deranged individual’ and denied that guns were to blame for the shooting.
‘We have a lot of mental health problems in our country, but this isn’t a guns situation,’ the US president said.
Trump calling someone ‘very deranged’ is like the pot calling the kettle black.
Why was a man with mental health problems – who also had a court martial and dishonourable discharge from the US Air Force for assaulting his wife and child – allowed to buy the type of guns that killed 26 at the Sutherland Springs Texas Baptist Church?
I totally disagree with Trump’s views about guns. It is guns that kill people.
Individuals feel power with a gun in their hands.
Let’s take the power away from them.
Strong laws against stupid people owning guns should be written and enforced everywhere.
KEVIN DEVITTE, Westport, Co. Mayo.
...I WAS interested to hear Donald Trump say that the massacre in Texas at the weekend was a product of bad mental health and then he went on to say there was a lot of mental health issues in America.
Like all good leaders, may I suggest it starts at the top and filters down. MARTIN STRINGER Barnacogue, Co. Mayo.
Poppy versus lily
I SEE that Fine Gael senator Neale Richmond has taken it upon himself by way of a condescending gesture to send a poppy pin to Gerry Adams, and has been highlighting his delusional act via various social media sites.
His reasoning for this wayward action was because of the fact that Mr Adams had sent him an Easter lily pin in April to commemorate the Easter Rising, possibly to advance his education on the subject.
Now, if Mr Neale is equating the poppy and all its connotations with the Easter lily, there is something seriously amiss in his understanding of those two symbols.
The red poppy is little more than a propaganda stunt, and used to glorify the imposition of British imperialism in the many unnecessary incursions into other countries during, and since, World War One. It is a well-known fact that thousands of Irishmen were duped into dying while wearing British uniforms in conflicts they had no business being in.
Meanwhile, the lily is a symbol of our enduring commitment to the ideals of all those, from every generation, who paid the ultimate sacrifice for Irish freedom.
In purchasing a poppy you are helping to commemorate all actions of British soldiers, including the Black and Tans who murdered innocent spectators in Croke Park. In Ballymurphy, west Belfast, they murdered 11, including a Catholic priest.
On Bloody Sunday 1972, teenag- ers and adults were mown down, resulting in 14 deaths.
The poppy is used by loyalist fundamentalists to commemorate members of their paramilitary groupings – UDA, UVF and UFF.
I hope Mr Neale and his party are proud of his disrespect for the signatories who proclaimed an Irish Republic, when he wears his red poppy, instead of a white one that represents peace and is a justified protest at continued and uncalled for war deaths.
JAMES WOODS, Gort an Choirce, Dún na nGall
Short shrift for shorts
FOLLOWING a remarkably mild spell for the time of year, there have been warnings of harsher weather on the way.
A positive aspect of such a drop in temperatures could be a reduction in the number of men wearing shorts in public places.
This craze appears to have reached epidemic proportions – with visions of male legs being displayed in the month of November a less than edifying sight.
I do not know what such ‘hardy lads’ hope to achieve by flaunting themselves. Speaking as a person with a keen eye for the so-called ‘fairer sex’ for many years, it has been disappointing to note more legs of males than females on show in recent weeks. But, perhaps, women are blessed with more cop-on than men. BILL MCMAHON, Co. Meath.
Lucky to have ‘Eighth’
IT should come as no surprise that the politicians who pushed through the UK’s Abortion Act, some 50 years ago this month, did so with the promise that it would only introduce abortion ‘on restrictive grounds’.
We are used to hearing politicians telling the public what they think they want to hear on a given subject. Unfortunately, 50 years on and it is clear this was nothing more than a false promise.
With over eight million abortions taking place in the UK since 1967, and an abortion rate of one in every five pregnancies, there is nothing ‘restrictive’ about the UK’s abortion laws.
In Ireland, we are very lucky to have had the Eighth Amendment to prevent similar loss of unborn life in this country.
Despite the posturing of various politicians over the next few months, we must act to ensure that this life-saving provision remains in the Constitution.
MARGARET SIMCOCK, Navan, Co. Meath