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Opinion
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- Written by: Randy Ridgel
Recently the news told of a man on the phone shouting to his wife, “Shoot him,” as an intruder broke into the crawl space where she was hiding with her children.
She did, and probably saved their lives. That reminded me of a personal horror story.
I attended Officer Candidate School (OCS) in Newport, Rhode Island, in July 1963. Despite a warning about the housing problem in Newport I took Jackie and two small sons there.
After a desperate search I was about to send them back to California when we found a place on the isthmus between Newport and Fall River, Massachusetts. It resembled the house in the movie “Psycho” and was isolated because a hurricane had destroyed the homes around it.
However, I wasn’t too worried because the elderly couple who rented it to us lived on the floor above. Below was a spooky basement where they stored antiques for their shop in Boston.
On reporting to OCS I learned two dreadful things: I couldn’t leave the base for six weeks and no phone calls were allowed.
At night I broke the law; the pay phone cord was long enough to reach into the head (restroom to you landlubbers) so I called Jackie and learned two more horrible things: First, the owners had moved out leaving her isolated and, second, Jackie spent most of the night driving around Newport because she was terrified to stay in that remote house alone with the children. Meanwhile I was confined to OCS.
During one nightly phone call she said, “Just a minute; I hear a noise downstairs.” I spent the longest minutes of my life shouting, “Hang up, Jackie; call the police.” I craved a gun for her and training to use it. Then she returned and said, “I guess it was the wind.” On my first liberty I found another house for them.
As you might guess from this, I’m against any gun control that would confiscate a gun from that lady in the crawl space and leave her at the mercy of the intruder. Do we really think someone willing to invade her house all the way to a crawl space where she’s hiding with her children cares about gun control?
Food for thought: Never in history, until recently, have young men engaged in mass murder with any weapons, including guns. Shouldn’t Washington wonder why – instead of fooling around with ignorant gun control laws that have proven not to work with criminals?
Randy Ridgel lives in Kelseyville, Calif.
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- Written by: David Smith
For those who read this, I would like to draw up any support from this for Lake County News.
I have known about and worked with Elizabeth Larson for a number of years now. I was recently struck in awe when I read about the removal of Lake County News from the sheriff’s email list (“Lake County News sues sheriff for discrimination, retaliation over news coverage,” http://bit.ly/11eWnsi ).
This blatant disregard for their First Amendment rights just brings me back to thinking that this county has a serious “good ole’ boy” problem.
Lake County News has proven to be the best, honest, unbiased and the fairest of reporting that this County has and probably ever will see.
Another source of media is a local newspaper (which shall remain unnamed in this letter) that I’ve seen, which has shown bias in many ways, especially when local politics are called into question. I have seen this other media outlet deliberately leave information out, just to keep our community in the dark, which also includes a program called In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS).
I was deeply involved with supporting the IHSS program and know that I tried to get support from that other news source by reaching out to them and Lake County News.
Myself and other providers and clients would write letters to these outlets, with Lake County News being the only media outlet that would print anything that we wrote.
I am offering up any support that I can give to Lake County News and am asking many of the residents of this county to do the same.
Lake County News needs our support and many people should speak up about the latest infringement of their inalienable First Amendment rights, because if we lose their forthright and honest reporting, we might as well send ourselves into the dark ages.
David Smith lives in Nice, Calif.
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- Written by: Pat and John Norcio
Thank you Lakeport and all of Lake County!
After 25 years as owners of McDonald’s-Lakeport, John and I are retiring. We want to thank all of you for your patronage and support.
We will miss being involved in the Lakeport schools and seeing the smiling faces of the children at our Halloween costume contest “McBoo.” Over the years we have certainly seen some wonderful costumes and had several generations of families participate.
We hope you will continue to patronize the restaurant. Our employees have remained in the restaurant and look forward to serving you in the future.
We will not be relocating and look forward to being active in community events here in Lake County.
Pat and John Norcio live in Lakeport, Calif.
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- Written by: Randy Ridgel
Here are some thoughts regarding the recent murders at Sandy Hook.
The colossal arrogance and ignorance of elected officials astonish me. Mississippi Sen. Bilbo once offered a bill to simplify pi by reducing it from an unending decimal to the numeral three. If it had passed, wheels would have come off all over America.
Politicians pushing gun control are protected by guards with guns. Sen. Feinstein carried a gun in her purse before she went to Congress. Congresswoman Pelosi appointed Mike Thompson to solve our gun problems. That he owns a gun and served in Vietnam was cited for his qualifications. Really.
Talk about “assault weapons” being unnecessary for hunting is nonsense; the Constitution discusses keeping our guns to form a militia to defend ourselves from oppressive governments, not hunting. The greatest murder rate in the history came from citizens owning no guns and government owning all, i. e, Hitler and Stalin.
Switzerland, with about the world’s lowest crime rate, teaches citizens at an early age to use and carry guns for life.
The largest army in the history of the world consists of American civilian gun owners with three hundred million guns. That’s 60 times the size of our army in WWII. Efforts to remove their firearms would make our earlier Civil War look like a spitball fight.
Mass murderers are crazy, not stupid; they attack gun-free zones like schools and theaters. They don’t attack shooting galleries.
What if the young teacher, Victoria Soto, murdered at Sandy Hook, had been trained and armed with a gun to defend her students instead of just her unprotected body?
If my neighbor has a magazine holding a thousand rounds it’s no concern to me. However, if some nut comes at me with a magazine containing 10 rounds I want one with 20.
Jack the Ripper, Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer all used knives. The greatest mass murder in American history, 911, was accomplished with a few box cutters. What if all the passengers had been armed with pistols firing hard rubber bullets, extremely painful to hijackers but harmless to the airplanes? Likewise with those movie goers in Colorado.
Laws requiring guns to be kept in safes are elderly abuse. Old people with no children can’t pick up a safe and hit an armed intruder before getting shot.
Gun control laws are illogical; a person planning murder won’t surrender his guns because he fears a gun-carrying fine more than the death penalty.
Randy Ridgel lives in Kelseyville, Calif.