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Each Memorial Day, we remember and honor our nation's service members who have given their lives to protect their country. These men and women volunteer to put their lives at risk on a daily basis, all in service of protecting our freedoms as citizens.
So too, it seems, do our nation's students.
Ten years have elapsed since 20 first-graders and 6 adult staff members lost their lives at Sandy Hook Elementary. Since that time, there have been an abundance of thoughts, a plethora of prayers and passionate discussion about the role of firearms in our society.
There have also been more than 948 active and nonactive school shooting situations since then, according to data from the Center for Homeland Defense and Security Naval Postgraduate School.
We all know that freedom isn't free, and it appears that a sufficient number of our politicians have decided that school shootings at regular intervals are a reasonable price to pay for the protection of our Second Amendment rights. If this is a phenomenon we must get used to moving forward (and if the lack of meaningful change over the last decade is any indication, it is), then the least that we can do as a nation is allocate federal funds to assist surviving family members.
In the same way that Gold Star families qualify for federal benefits to honor their children's sacrifices, so too should the families of children who are unjustly and senselessly ripped from their lives to preserve our right to keep and bear firearms. After all, freedom doesn't come free — why should our Second Amendment be an exception?
Marcus Peterson, St. Paul
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The most shameful aspect about the shooting at Robb Elementary School is that there is not one person in this country who didn't expect this to happen again. God have mercy on the soul of the politician who utters the phrase "thoughts and prayers" and nothing else at this point. Better school security, more access to mental health care and adequate law enforcement all have their place. But at its core, the ever-worsening gun violence crisis in this country is the result of a gun in the hands of an individual who should never have had access to one. As has been repeated over and over, we need comprehensive federal gun safety legislation that includes a background check on every gun sale, a crackdown on unscrupulous dealers who don't perform a background check in all cases, extreme risk protection orders to temporarily remove guns from dangerous persons, waiting periods for gun purchases, limits on magazine size, serious criminal penalties for straw purchases and a new assault weapons ban.
Thoughts and prayers have never stopped a shooting. The midterm elections are looming. Do not vote for a candidate who doesn't support a legislative program for gun safety.
John Barden, Prior Lake
PRIMARIES
Ranked-choice voting needed
Prof. Lawrence Jacobs is a keen observer of American democracy. In his commentary ("The 'primary' cause of our political fevers," Opinion Exchange, May 22), he reviews the history of elections and points to the increasing influence of primaries in our political system as being the primary reason fueling partisan polarization. The party extremes prevail in primaries under a plurality winner system. The remedy to this crippling problem is surprisingly simple — ranked-choice voting, sometimes called instant runoff voting. Under RCV, voters rank three or four candidates. In the event that no candidate achieves 50% of the vote, the lowest candidate drops out and the candidates are reranked until a candidate reaches at least 50%. So winners are supported by at least half of the electorate and extremists have a more difficult time prevailing. RCV allows voters to vote for the candidate they most support without worrying about having to vote for the lesser of two evils.
The adoption of RCV in several Minnesota cities, as well as other states, shows that it is a simple system for voters and reduces the incentives for negative campaigning. At a time when political extremism is tearing apart our country, this simple change will provide more influence to the majority and will acknowledge the founders' concern over the divisiveness of political parties.
George Beck, St. Louis Park
COVID
Louder, please: Walz saved lives
How wonderful would it be if Minnesotans would actually pay attention to the COVID management metrics the Star Tribune Editorial Board so cautiously endorses? ("Scoring Minnesota's COVID management," May 22). We have done better than our neighboring states in testing, vaccinations, cases and death rates despite the obvious flaws in these statistics. (So called "long COVID" cases are not mentioned nor are the other devastating health conditions exacerbated by infections.) The problem is, of course, that the political malpractice of Republicans will rely on the same old toxic brew of denial, deflection, fear and bombast instead of reasoned debate. The likely Republican nominee for governor is an ardent anti-vax, anti-mask, anti-public health demagogue who, despite having a medical degree, continues to refute the factual success of the current governor's policies.
A question for the medical licensing board: How is it possible that Scott Jensen retains his medical credentials? Reasonable arguments will not win over the hearts of the perpetually fearful nor succeed against the shameless pandering that passes for political discourse by Republicans. Even deathbed confessions fall on deaf ears.
Tell it like it is: Gov. Tim Walz's policies have saved lives, including those of his political opponents. How is that for public service?
George Hutchinson, Minneapolis
RACE
No, really — we're individuals
In advising columnist Laura Yuen ("No, we are not all interchangeable Asians," May 15) to just sit back and enjoy being mistaken for other Asian Americans, a May 22 letter writer makes the false analogy between himself as a Caucasian working in Shanghai and Yuen's experiences as an Asian American ("Recognition mix-ups happen").
Why is this analogy false? First, Shanghai doesn't possess near the diversity of the Twin Cities, where we constantly interact and work with Americans of different races. Moreover, the letter writer was not a Chinese national or born there, and he only stayed three years.
In contrast, my family first arrived in America in 1898. How long do Asian Americans have to be here before we are recognized as individual Americans?
At 11 and 15, my parents were imprisoned unjustly by the U.S. government even as my uncles fought for America in World War II. In the past two years, Asian American hate crimes have risen by some 150% and the cause is the same reason my parents were imprisoned in America's concentration camps — so many Americans refuse to distinguish between Asians and Asian Americans. Does the letter writer want us to sit back and enjoy these hate crimes and microaggressions, too?
In our racially and ethnically diverse Twin Cities, everyone should take the time to individually distinguish their fellow workers. That's not only what America should be; it's also good business practice.
Ironically, May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. The letter writer should learn about our complex identities and history in America before he pretends to give us "friendly" advice.
David Mura, Minneapolis
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I read Yuen's column and the following letter to the editor. My takeaway from the column was that Yuen was highlighting a rather common tendency of people of a racial majority to be insensitive to microaggressions toward a racial minority and the effects of that microaggression. In her column, she emphasizes the microaggression of "mix-up" — not making the effort to learn a person's name (or at least stopping to ask).
Being viewed/recognized as an individual is important to people of all races. I can see that the mix-up scenario, occurring again and again over time, can become very frustrating for the recipient. It just seems a bit lazy that the majority in our country doesn't make the effort to treat people as individuals and eliminate the mix-up scenario.
Tom McDonough, Eagan
