Gun legislation Fix potholes

The Constitution was ordained and established by “We the People” and through it the people granted enumerated powers to the Congress as found in Article I and confirmed in the 10th Amendment. “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Therefore, the citizenry wields the ultimate power in this country.

Pending gun legislation in Congress would turn firearm ownership into an elitist privilege, contradicting the Constitution’s goal to “promote the general Welfare.”

This legislation would infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms as secured by the Second Amendment. Americans demonstrated unprecedented support for that right by participating in a record-setting 39.7 million National Instant Criminal Background Check System checks in 2020 alone (more than 300 million since 1998).

While each of these checks does not necessarily represent an individual purchase, they do represent belief in the right of ownership.

The power to legislate comes from the citizens, the consent of the governed; there is no authority given Congress to ignore this guiding principle and infringe upon the second most important right of the American people.

Chuck Colegrove, Williamsburg

Re “Virginia Beach will use parking money to help build entertainment venue” (March 17): I travel on Pacific Avenue every day to and from work. It’s embarrassing how bad the condition of this road is. I’ve had enough of it. We are better than this.

I’ve been in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their roads are better than Pacific. Also,

I’ll guarantee the potholes are damaging everyone’s vehicles.

Finally, this didn’t “just happen.” This road has been in bad shape for over a decade. How about using the parking money to do something for all of us and our tourists before building another entertainment venue.

Richard Mahone, Virginia Beach