Don’t Sarasota police know what causes crime?
Re "Sarasota police to unveil Community Action Team," June 24: "A new Police Department Community Action Team is hitting the streets of Sarasota to find the underlying causes of crime."
You mean the police don’t already know? How could they not? The "underlying causes of crime" have been known and taught for decades, generations even.
This looks and smells like another attempt to substitute inaction for action. Trimming bushes is not dealing with underlying causes.
I do not favor "defunding" police departments, as some have proposed, but some funds might be better used to act on the well-known underlying causes, such as poverty, lack of decent health care, nutrition, education and housing, and bigotry.
Please ask Police Chief Bernadette DiPino to let us know what underlying causes the new CAT squads find.
Jim Tolley, Sarasota
No matter the cost, individual freedom rules
Donald Trump followers are fighting for their freedom by refusing to wear masks, which protect the mask wearer and others from COVID-19.
Mask burning parties, spitting at Asian doctors, death threats against health officials, threatening mask wearers, etc., are all part of this freedom effort. We have to wonder if the next step of their freedom fight is the right to drive drunk.
Why not? It endangers themselves and others, often resulting in serious injury or death, just like not wearing masks.
Individual freedom rules, much to the detriment of American society.
Terri David, Venice
Measures for reopening economy with least harm
In Florida, new cases of COVID-19 are surging, and hospitalizations and deaths are ticking up with the loosening recently of economic restrictions. This has occurred in a younger age group than before, with these people being less likely to experience complications from the virus.
However, it is just a matter of time before the young fan out and infect the elderly and immune compromised individuals. This is when Florida will experience a dramatic increase in hospitalizations and deaths.
The only way to avoid this fate is if we further increase our testing rate, including repeatedly testing those in contact with the immune compromised, such as health care workers and first responders and those engaging the public in restaurants, hair salons and stores.
Appropriate measures can then be taken to alert facilities when their workers test positive. We must hire sufficient numbers of trackers to identify positive testers and their recent contacts to have them self-quarantine for two weeks and test negative.
Only with these measures can we limit viral spread, avoid overwhelming our hospitals and reduce the number of dead.
Ronald H. Gottlieb, MD, Sarasota
To protect health, save money, nix conventions
I totally agree with "To prevent infection, skip both conventions," a June 23 letter. Please skip the Democratic and Republican conventions.
The candidates are already decided! Having the GOP convention in Jacksonville when Florida's COVID-19 numbers are going up daily is putting too many of our citizens at risk.
The attendees have a choice to attend. The thousands of workers associated with the event and local citizens do not.
Let's not jeopardize any more people. Let's use the millions of dollars saved to help those suffering from loss of income, hunger and other difficulties caused by this illness. Let's be smart!
Cynthia Gilchrist, Nokomis
Court should confirm right of self-defense
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to address 10 pending gun rights cases, but that isn’t all bad.
The left lusts to confiscate our personal guns, urging us to rely on government for security, but authoritarian officials across the country have failed in their highest duty to have trained law enforcement protect innocents from being injured and killed, their property looted and their livelihoods destroyed.
Fortunately, our founding Declaration of Independence recognized that we acquire at first breath an innate entitlement to the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, unalienable and thus defensible (with arms, how else?) against all antagonists.
The Second Amendment came along later to tell the government to butt out. Yet court opinions parse interpretations of "militia" (Heller) and "weapons in common use" (Miller) and politicians debate trivia like gun clips and trigger locks and condemn AR-15s and AK-47s, which shoot like any handgun.
With the next gun rights case, the justices should simply confirm our innate right of self-defense and adjourn. Then, when violent criminals, disturbed individuals or foreign or domestic tyranny smash through our front door, we can defend ourselves with adequate weaponry that functions nothing like a single shot musket.
John A. Lanzetta, retired attorney, Sarasota
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Saturday’s letters: Causes of crime, individual freedom, self-defense, more - Sarasota Herald-Tribune
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