Mountain Views News          Saturday, July 21, 2012

16

LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN

 Mountain Views News Saturday July 21, 2012 

Howard as AS I SEE IT will be back next week. 

HAVE WE HAD ENOUGH YET?

OBAMA LAUNCHES ATTACK AND 
MAKES ROMNEY LOOK GOOD

 
On Friday, the nation 
was shocked by the most 
violent mass murder 
in the nation’s history. 
Twelve innocent people 
were killed and 59 unsuspecting 
citizens were 
gunned down by a man, 
whom some would say, 
was exercising his second 
amendment right 
to bear arms. The question 
that must be asked 
is, Have We Had Enough 
Yet?

 Almost 40 years ago, 
when my father was 
younger than I am now, 
he was gunned down by a 78 year old man who 
was demented and thought my father was someone 
else, so when I speak of the need for gun 
control, I speak as someone who has experienced 
that telephone call informing you that your loved 
one has been killed by the hands of some irresponsible 
person protected by self serving gun 
advocates.

 Those innocent people in Colorado, like my father, 
were exercising their right to an evening in 
what was deemed to be a ‘safe’ environment and 
expected that the laws of this land would protect 
them from danger. It didn’t.

 Did you know that since the beginning of this 
year there have been six mass random shootings:

July 19, Aurora, Colo: Gunman shoots into a 
movie theater, killing 12 and injuring 59 others;

July 17, Tusaloosa, Ala: Gunman shoots into a 
bar, injuring 17;

May 30, Seattle, Wash: Gunman shoots into cafe 
and later carjacks a woman, killing five and injuring 
one other;

April 7, Tulsa, Okla: Two gunmen accused of 
shooting passersby in a north Tulsa neighborhood, 
killing three and injuring two others;

April 2, Oakland, Calif: Gunman opens fire on 
classroom at Oikos University, killing seven and 
injuring three others;

March 3, Pittsburgh, Pa.: A gunman opens fire 
on a psychiatric hospital in Pittsburgh, killing 
one person and injuring seven more. 

February 27, Chardon, Ohio: Teenager shoots 
into high school cafeteria, killing three and injuring 
three others.

And it is only July.

 It is a fact that the Constitution gives every citizen 
the right to bear arms, but at the time that 
amendment was drafted, times were very different. 
Most notably, there was one very significant 
difference in the weapons of the day. There were 
no hand carried automatic or semi-automatic 
weapons.

 The Gatling gun, patented in 1861 by Richard 
Jordan Gatling, was the first to offer controlled, 
sequential fire with automatic loading. The design’s 
key features were machine loading of prepared 
cartridges and a hand-operated crank for 
sequential high-speed firing. It was used first 
in the Civil War and was not a commonly purchased 
weapon by ordinary citizens.

 Guns of the caliber and type used by James 
Holmes go beyond the scope of the Constitution. 
One of his weapons held 100 rounds of ammunition. 
Something that our forefathers could not 
even imagine. In January 2011, the gunman that 
shot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords shot 32 
bullets in 15 seconds. That kind of weapon was 
definitely not in the minds of the drafters of the 
Constitution either. 

 Let’s face it. Our world has changed tremendously 
since the early 1700’s. Our values have 
changed too. By now we should be able to see that 
a comprimise must be reached when it comes to 
gun control. It is not enough to simply require 
background checks. We have to minimize the 
public’s risk of becoming victims to weaponry 
designed for wars. 

 People don’t buy semi automatic and automatic 
weapons to protect their homes. That’s bull. 
When is the last time you heard of an intruder 
being gundowned by a home owner with an 
AK47? The proliferation of these true weapons of 
mass destruction have no place being sold to anything 
other than an army. Our law enforcement 
agencies shouldn’t even have them, although it 
becomes a necessity since criminals are so well 
armed.

 As long as we put the politics of gun control, the 
fear of the NRA and its influence over our elections 
first, things will never change. What happened 
in Aurora, or what happened to my dad 
for that matter, are the result of us sitting on our 
hands and not taking rational action to protect 
society. It is time for us to recognize the America 
in which we live. It is time for us to have had 
enough. 

 Adam Winkler, a UCLA Constitutional Law 
Professor has authored a very good book entitled 
GUN FIGHT: The Battle Over The Right To Bear 
Arms In America. It’s really worth reading. Might 
save your life or the life of someone you love one 
day. 

(It’s A Heck Of A Way To Win An Election)

President Obama and his campaign team are 
in attack mode, and they seem to sense blood 
in the water. They’re trying to hit Romney 
hard and fast, and they’ve concluded that 
his relative silence demonstrates political 
vulnerability. Unfortunately, they may just 
be too smart for their own good. Team 
Obama’s obsession with Romney’s business 
background and accomplishments may just 
backfire and demonstrate to the country 
that we have the opportunity to elect a man 
who has proven more successful in running 
things than Obama, who left a well paying 
job to meet his civic responsibility and who 
has created more jobs in this country than 
Obama even knows how to count.

We’ve all heard the spin by now. According 
to Team Obama, Romney made false filings 
to the Securities Exchange Commission, he 
has vast foreign holdings and he shipped 
jobs overseas while at Bain Capital. I’m 
actually surprised that they didn’t add in the 
Mormon-cult thing (again) to put what they 
hope would be a final nail in the Romney 
coffin. Well, on second thought, perhaps they 
don’t need to do that. After all, they doubled 
down on the SEC filing thing and actually 
accused Romney of committing a felony in 
his filings with this regulatory body. If the 
man belongs in prison, we probably don’t 
need to worry about his religion, do we?

But what if the “Romney is corrupt, evil and 
insensitive” theme is as obviously false as a 
little kid claiming he didn’t eat the cookie 
while still wearing its crumbs on his face? 
That’s why this is going to be a problem for 
Obama, because the lie is so stupidly crafted 
and easily refuted that it will backfire.

Let’s take the Romney felony rap first. Mr. 
Romney left his CEO position at Bain 
Capital in order to take up the job of fixing 
the Salt Lake City Olympic Games. After 
he “left”, he signed SEC forms indicating 
that he was still the CEO of Bain, and lying 
to the SEC is a felony. The problem here is 
that Romney took a leave of absence from 
Bain. He didn’t resign. He could return to 
Bain at his choosing without being rehired 
by the board. Had he told the SEC he wasn’t 
involved with Bain Capital, that would have 
been the lie, and he would have been in real 
trouble. This is very common, absolutely 
kosher, and is exactly the same thing that 
Steve Jobs – bid Democratic supporter – did 
when he was battling health issues. Senior 
executives take leaves of absence to help 
their communities.

What about the whole Olympic thing 
anyway? Does it really make sense to point 
out how Romney left his extremely well 
paying job as CEO of Bain in order to fix 
the SLC Olympics? Since the games were 
close to being cancelled and Romney turned 
them around, this doesn’t sound like a smart 
political move on Obama’s part. Romney 
fixes things really well. I can think of some 
things that need fixing in this country – most 
of them were broken by Obama.

Now, there’s always the wealth issue. Romney 
is in the 1%, so that’s a bad thing, right? Well, 
only if you think that being really successful 
at what you do, creating wealth for all your 
shareholders and saving or launching a half 
dozen or so businesses 
is a bad thing. I think 
Americans want to be 
successful, they want 
their President to be 
successful and they 
want their country to 
be successful. We’re 
not seeing a lot of 
success under the current President. I vote 
for the guy who can get America running 
again.

I guess I have to address the foreign holdings 
and foreign bank accounts issue to be fair. 
First and foremost, Romney didn’t write the 
current set of stupid tax rules that encourage 
people to put money overseas. In fact, 
Romney has stated that he wants to fix the tax 
code so it’s not as confusing and doesn’t favor 
certain businesses, activities or locations 
over others. That whole mess was created by 
Democrats. All Romney did was follow the 
rules they wrote. Each of us does the same 
thing. No American voluntarily pays more 
income taxes than the law demands. We 
all strive to reduce our burden as much as 
we legally can. Heck, based on the public 
disclosure forms they signed, even certain 
residents of the West Wing are wealthy and 
have foreign holdings and accounts.

The grand finale has to be the jobs issue. 
Shipping jobs overseas has been investigated 
by at least two nationally respected fact-
checking agencies. The Washington post 
called the accusation “misleading, unfair 
and untrue”. The Annenberg Center stated it 
“found no evidence to support the claim.” In 
fact, the truth is exactly the opposite.

Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital was marked 
by a series of investments in either troubled 
companies or new ventures that needed 
capital to expand. In the case of the troubled 
companies, had Bain not invested, all the 
jobs would have been lost. Some people were 
laid off so the company could survive and 
more people could retain jobs and careers. 
In the case of the start ups, let’s take Staples 
as an example. Thanks to Bain’s investment, 
Staples was able to grow and open thousands 
of stores. Several tens of thousands of people 
gained employment and countless millions 
of small business people saved money on 
office supplies, and then used those savings 
to grow their companies and hire still more 
people.

If Americans really give the spin coming from 
the Obama campaign team some serious 
consideration, they may just conclude that 
Mitt Romney is the man for the job. He 
knows how to get things done, he’s created 
wealth for others, he’s given selflessly when 
his community needed him and he’s created 
thousands of jobs directly and millions more 
indirectly. If I were President Obama, I 
wouldn’t be so quick and cocky to remind 
voters of those facts.

About the author: Gregory J. Welborn is a 
freelance writer and has spoken to several 
civic and religious organizations on cultural 
and moral issues. He lives in the Los Angeles 
area with his wife and 3 children and is active 
in the community. He can be reached at 
gregwelborn@earthlink.net.

Susan Henderson,

Publisher/Editor