LETTERS: On state’s new license plate, gun control

Likes the new plate, Anglicized motto

To the editor:

Overall, I like the new plate with the Anglicized motto. I liked the colors of the previous one better but color costs more, I suppose. This is the fifth plate in +/- 15 years.  Why does it keep changing?  The single sticker will be nice.

— Elizabeth Bagby, Charleston, S.C.

Doesn’t like the state motto

To the editor:

“While I breath, I hope”???? Come on, couldn’t you come up with something a little more realistic? For all people of S.C.?

It seems like the government is telling the people of the state what to think. I don’t hope for anything. I DO! Back to those with their hands out, hoping for someone to fill it for them. I’m sick of S.C. I’m sick of government. I’m sick of being told what to do, what to think, etc.

Enough, is enough. I will be the one with the white tape over the state motto on my plates.

— Paul Schaubhut, Ridgeville, S.C.

Editor’s note: The state adopted the motto in 1776. More.

Nothing but hope left for many

To the editor:

When I saw the motto, I just sighed.  There are so many wonderful things about South Carolina, including the people.  It is a constant frustration to me that our politicians leave so many with nothing but hope.

— Agnes Pomato, Wadmalaw Island, S.C.

New plate easier to see by law enforcement

To the editor:

The issue is not which tag looks better as it is not an art contest.  The sunset tags were quite colorful but law enforcement had a hard time making out the letters and numbers.

Hopefully moving towards a standard tag and away from the go-zillion combinations of colors and designs with the specialty tags, coupled with a clearly contrasting but nice color scheme, will make the tags more visible to law enforcement, which is their main function.  Colorful artwork supporting any cause can go on the bumper in the form of a sticker.

— Steve Willis, Lancaster, S.C.

We just must be too “dum” to know better

To the editor:

They must think we’re too “Dum” to use the Latin (motto on the new license plate)!

— Charlie Smith, Charleston, S.C.

Gun control edit doesn’t pass muster, but some suggestions sound

To the editor:

Where can one get an objective, non-politicized, depiction of the facts about gun violence in the USA?  Anti-gun control groups claim that the vast majority of USA homicides with a firearm happen in the most tightly gun-controlled cities of Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. – thereby skewing the gun violence statistics of the nation.  Gun control groups, on the other hand, claim more gun deaths occur in “red” states than in “blue” states.

Furthermore, many seem to want to infringe gun rights without a constitutional amendment that revokes or abridges the Second Amendment right of citizens to bear arms., while the National Rifle Association (NRA) seeks to prevent any regulation of guns, claiming that the individual’s right to bear guns is as constitutionally sacrosanct as the freedom of the press. See the following link for a short constitutional history of the Second Amendment, which seems to imply that the NRA’s position is closer to how the Constitution is currently interpreted. That said, the NRA’s position clearly goes further than the Supreme Court’s current interpretation of the Second Amendment.

I am most troubled, however, by those such as you who seem to believe that gun control automatically will mitigate violence against Americans.  The linkage between gun control and less killings in the USA is specious at best (see reference above to Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.), while you seem to think that the connection is so obvious that it needs only to be implied.  You additionally implicitly choose to ignore legitimate constitutional issues which presumably can be finessed in the name of “let the killing stop” (my chosen phrase to capture your “Wild West” metaphor).

Your case for gun control therefore does not pass my test for a rationale upon which to limit the Second Amendment’s individual right to bear arms. I can be convinced that there is a basis for legitimate, reasonable limits on access to guns, but you have not made them in your editorial.

That said, some of your specific suggestions – despite the flawed basis upon which you advance them — seem sound to me, and I agree that gun laws in S.C. may need to be tightened.  But such tightening must be done within current constitutional guidelines and based upon a clearly logical connection (supported by facts) between enhanced public safety and the suggested changes — not based on an ad hominem call to “stop the killing” through gun control because gun violence is “out of control” and Congress is paralyzed, while ignoring any constitutional issues such gun control measures may create.

— Bob Johnson, Summerville, S.C.

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