Sounding off: Bump stock ban, cyber charters, Trump, Biden among week's topics

Pa. needs a bump stock ban

I am writing regarding the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn a federal ban on bump stocks, the lethal device that turns semi-automatic rifles into military-style killing machines. At the Las Vegas music festival in 2017, the shooter used this device to kill more than 55 people.

Pennsylvanians are in grave danger once again with this decision by an embattled Supreme Court. In May, Pennsylvania House Bill 335 was voted down in a one-vote margin fueled mostly by Pennsylvania House Minority Leader Bryan Cutler, who claimed a Pennsylvania ban was unnecessary due to a federal ban. We are now all less safe in a commonwealth where these lethal gun conversion devices are easily and legally accessible to anyone who wants to inflict mass damage.

State lawmakers need to revisit this issue immediately, put the political power struggles aside and pass meaningful legislation that keeps Pennsylvanians safe. Many are not listening to their constituents’ pleas to step up gun violence protection. Polling from 2017 (prior to the enactment of the federal ban) showed that 82% of Americans support banning bump stocks.

It is all in the hands of the Pennsylvania state lawmakers. Take urgent action and pass a law to ban bump stocks once and for all in Pennsylvania.

Barbara Richards

McCandless

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Flat fee for cyber charters

The letter “Poorly run schools misusing taxpayer money” (June 21, TribLive) notes what 500 school districts across the state have repeated to legislators for over a decade. Cyber charters can educate a child for $8,000-$8,500. Cybers can accomplish this, when no school district can, for numerous reasons.

Cybers don’t run buses every day. They don’t operate cafeterias. They don’t need a new roof on the high school just as the HVAC system fails in one of the elementaries. They aren’t maintaining athletic fields, gyms and art/drama/music performance areas. They aren’t serving the most severely disabled special ed students. Every district has these costs.

It is absurd that, for decades, districts have been forced by legislation to pay so many nonexistent costs to cybers.

Every district in the state would retain hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for local use, if, as per Gov. Josh Shapiro’s proposed budget, the cost for cyber schools were finally set as a flat fee.

Readers, please call our local senators — Kim Ward (717-787-6063) and Joe Pittman (717-787-8724 ). And call Scott Martin, chair of the Senate Appropriations committee (717-787-6535).

Say you want a flat fee for cyber charters now.

Helen Sitler

Ligonier

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God is life, and abortion is death

The writer of the letter “Abortion and the Bible” (June 16, TribLive) has used the Bible to make a fallacious argument concerning the morality of abortion. If he had been careful not to take the sacred text out of context, he would have seen the folly of his argument.

The God of the Bible is morally upright and does not support abortion, as proposed by the writer. The God of the Bible revealed through his son Jesus that he came to bring life and to give it abundantly. The antithesis is death, and the devil comes to kill, steal and destroy.

The twisting of the meaning of scripture to support your cause of death is incredibly naïve and wrong.

Don Walczak

Hempfield

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You’ll get autocracy if you vote for Trump

I’m not sure how anyone can accept the possibility of autocracy. Project 2025, a plan put together by conservative groups backing Donald Trump, includes many notions that deal with taking away your rights — giving more authority to the executive branch and telling you what you can do.

If you feel this former president will save you, then pinch yourself and wake up. Look at Project 2025. It appears to be very much like the Putin model. If you support Trump, you very well may return us to Germany circa 1939.

Gerry Hall

New Kensington

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Trump charges serious, verdict right

There are several misstatements in the article “Trump verdicts make NYC Venezuela-on-the-Hudson” (June 8, TribLive). Author Hans A. Von Spakovsky tries to downplay the seriousness of the charges against Donald Trump by stating they were “paperwork errors” when in fact they were deliberate criminal actions. He states that “the statute of limitations had run out” when in fact it had been extended due to covid. Trump was charged with a crime he committed to cover up his previous crimes. This by definition is a felony and not a misdemeanor. The author deliberately distorted the facts concerning the jurisdiction, the previous prosecutor’s actions and the judge’s instructions to the jurors.

The article compared Trump’s case to Harvey Weinstein’s conviction. Weinstein was convicted but got off on a technicality. If Judge Juan Merchan’s instructions to the jurors were inappropriate, then Trump, like Weinstein, will have his guilty verdict overturned on appeal. This does not mean he was innocent.

It is sad that Spakovsky, a former Justice Department lawyer, is willing to erode the people’s faith in the American legal system, in the rule of law. He delegitimized the verdict strictly for political reasons, in order to salvage the reputation of a convicted criminal, because they share political ideologies, and Trump happens to be their best chance to retake the White House.

Joanne Garing

North Huntingdon

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Trump verdict suspect

You don’t have to be a Donald Trump supporter to realize that his conviction raises serious questions. For example, how can you be convicted of covering up a crime when you haven’t been found guilty of the crime you allegedly covered up? How can the mere receiving of bills from your attorney (counts 1, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 26, 29, 32) be crimes?

If Trump’s bookkeeper had created ledger entries (counts 2, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, 30, 33) and check stubs (counts 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 22, 25, 28, 31, 34) that read “bill from attorney” instead of “attorney’s fees,” would there be no case against Trump?

How many other people in New York have been found guilty of a felony for the wording used on their check stubs? What kind of legal hocus pocus changed these misdemeanors into felonies? Why wasn’t this case brought the day after Trump left office?

This case was less about demonstrating that no one is above the law and more about demonstrating how a politically motivated district attorney can make a felon out of anyone.

Ed Pencoske

Trafford

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Biden’s weaknesses endanger U.S.

President Biden has put this country under a larger risk for one or more massive terror attacks with his border fiasco than we had during World War II and 9/11. Before he was elected, there was estimated to be over 12 million illegal immigrants here; he has doubled that amount.

I don’t believe they are all here to improve their lives; some are here to destroy ours. They are destroying state economies with expenses for their health and educational costs.

We can’t keep casually saying an attack is coming. We must wake up and actively prepare to stop them.

Biden’s weaknesses have brought our adversaries to the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, and off the east and west coasts. Another weakness he has is to consider his son a model citizen.

Edward Biskup

Penn Township, Westmoreland County