<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div>Courtesy of today's (January 22, 2015) Spokesman/Review with thanks and appreciation to Chris Norden.</div><div><br></div><div>--------------------------------------</div><div><h1 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; clear: both; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; line-height: 1.2; font-size: 28px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(17, 17, 17);">Not safer with guns</h1><p style="margin-bottom: 21px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">When a powerful organization called al-Qaida nurtures the violent fantasies of angry and disaffected men, and enables them to obtain weapons and kill innocent civilians, we call that terrorism.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">When a profit-driven industry lobby called the National Rifle Association makes it easy as pie for any angry, or even crazy, person to get handguns and assault weapons and act out their own violent fantasies against family and community members, does that count as terrorism, too?</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">As with most of the stupidity and irrationality in American public life, our friends, neighbors and family members are being killed on a weekly basis nationwide because this is what we have asked for, either by voting for politicians who are stooges of the NRA, or by not voting at all, thus leaving the decision to zealots.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">So tell me again that a nation flooded with guns and plagued with mass murders is somehow freer and safer than nations like Australia, Canada or England with vastly lower murder rates. Somehow, I’m not feeling it.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I’ve been a gun owner all my adult life, am pro-hunting and attended the police funeral following the previous Moscow mass murders in 2007. Still not feeling it.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px;"><strong style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Chris Norden</strong></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px;"><em style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Moscow</em></p></div><div>--------------------------------------<br><br><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Moscow Cares"</span></div><div><a href="http://www.moscowcares.com/" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000">http://www.MoscowCares.com</font></a></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></div><div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Tom Hansen</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Moscow, Idaho</span></div></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"There's room at the top they are telling you still.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But first you must learn how to smile as you kill,</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">If you want to be like the folks on the hill."</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">- John Lennon</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></div></div></div></body></html>