Vote them out
I find it odd that Lt. Gov. Josh Green has ads on TV touting the great job he did managing the pandemic. This is supposedly why you should vote him in as governor. Well, he may be a nice guy but he did a terrible job managing the pandemic. If you or your family has been injured by business shutdowns, lockdowns, mask and/or vaccine mandates do not vote for Lt. Gov. Josh Green or anyone else who implemented these policies, including Mayor Derek Kawakami. There may be enough people who were injured by these policies to swing these elections.
Vote instead for people who stood for individual rights being upheld, mostly Republicans. Examples of governors who effectively managed the pandemic crisis in this way are Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota. I used to vote Democratic, but after this debacle I have switched parties. The policies in Hawaii were executive branch overreach of the worst kind.
Molly Jones, Kealia
Keep Kaua‘i a ‘peaceable kingdom’
After this most recent school shooting tragedy in Texas, I’m spurred to write how against the selling of assault-type weaponry to private citizens I remain. I realize that part of our American freedom is “the right to bear arms,” but nowhere does it say we need repetitive, assault type rifles.
Endless news reports and conversations seem to go around and around about how difficult it is to control the sale of arms, especially when they are available via the internet. The same holds for talk-talk-talk about ways to spot mental health and anger management problems.
Meanwhile, as we have seen, 4th graders and teachers are murdered in this latest tragic massacre.
I believe it would be in the public’s best interest to bring pressure via our lawmakers on the leaders of the National Rifle Assoc. (NRA) on—as a start—to come out with a statement that assault rifles for private citizens are not condoned. After all, the name of the association is not the National Assault Rifle Assoc And then, our lawmakers should make sure that sentencing of individuals who continue to arm themselves with such weapons and use them in bursts of repetitive fire to murder innocent people, including children, should receive the strictest of sentences. Perhaps such criminals, if known to be or proven guilty, should not be granted any possibility of parole or redemption. Let’s let the “punishment fit the crime”… and this comes from a peace lover.
As a postscript, I’m wondering why it’s necessary to have a sign such as the one I’ve seen posted mauka of Kuhio Hwy. in Kapa‘a: “NEW SHIPMENTS OF RIFLES ARRIVED.” Doesn’t every valid pig hunter or other type of hunter on Kaua‘i know where to get a hunting rifle and ammunition if they need to without such advertising? A quickie search for “gun shops kauai” yielded instantaneous results. You would think that since many people who move here reveal that they are tired of being frightened of “drive by” shootings, some one would be tempted to tear that sign down and storm whatever place is responsible for pushing weaponry sales!
Sincerely, hoping to keep Kaua‘i a “peaceable kingdom.”
Dawn F. Kawahara, Lihue
