Have gun, will travel

Permitless carry bill passes Florida House, firearm training requirement removed | March 24

The traffic light or turn arrow turns green, but the car in front of me doesn’t move. I have sat through these light changes behind someone several times. The record is three changes of a turn arrow on U.S. 19 in Holiday. That pickup driver finally shot through the third yellow, leaving me at the gate. Do I honk or even tap my horn or flash my lights? No, I’m guessing that these self-absorbed drivers are likely to also be packing, and dying over a stoplight just doesn’t appeal to me. What a great state we live in.

Tony Leisner, Tarpon Springs

More guns than people

3 children, 3 adults killed in school shooting | March 28

Six more innocent people, including three children, were shot and killed, along with the shooter, in a Christian elementary school. Police acted quickly and ended the carnage. With approximately 433 million firearms, including more than 20 million AR-15-style weapons, now circulating in our population of approximately 332 million, we all sit on a powder keg. And the gun industry tells us the only solution is to buy more guns? Suicide by gun, along with domestic and workplace shootings, are epidemic. Mass shootings in once-safe havens like churches, schools and shops have become common. We have turned the “right to bear arms” into a growing catastrophe of our own making. Who have we become?

Diane Love, St. Petersburg

Money can’t fix evil

We need the money | Letter, March 27

I believe that, while well-meaning, this letter-writer is harboring a pair of mistaken ideas. The first is that government can fix societal problems. The second is that failure to do so is because of insufficient funding. You cannot legislate morality. The Lord couldn’t do so with the Ten Commandments, so what makes us think that any government entity could? At best, you can penalize miscreants after the fact, but you cannot stifle the underlying evil, no matter how much money you throw at it. Let’s stop kidding ourselves.

John S.V. Weiss, Spring Hill

What to ban

Tampa Bay area schools grapple with book, movie challenges | March 27

Gov. Ron DeSantis would be better doing something of value like banning AR-15s in Florida than encouraging the banning of books.

Ross P. Alander, Tampa