Guns aren't declining; owners just smarter
I believe the article in Sunday's Times Free Press, "Share of homes with guns shows four-decade decline," to be mistaken. Gun ownership has not declined from 50 percent in the 1970s to an estimated 35 percent in 2012. What actually has happened is this: Big government and the liberal news media have caused more gun owners to become smarter and to respond falsely to such surveys asking questions about their household's ownership of firearms.
As more gun owners realize what is happening, the trend for gun ownership will continue to increase, while the surveys will indicate otherwise. If I owned any guns, I'd bet half of my collection that I'm right.
BEN BURKE
Who notices our city is crumbling?
David Cook and Dalton Roberts tell Times Free Press readers what actually is going on in Chattanooga.
The city continues to grow, but the foundation is crumbling. The spark that used to be there, beginning in the late 1980s when urban revitalization and renewal started, has faded. The "Scenic City" exists, but the attitude that created it has somehow been lost. Once proud portions of the city have become gang-ruled; citizen participation in the political process has been reduced to less than 20 percent. Trust in political leadership and law enforcement is dwindling.
With the exception of Dalton Roberts and David Cook, who so eloquently tell it like it is, the media seems reluctant to move away from unfortunate political correctness and tackle the issues that are causing the foundation of Chattanooga to erode. Let's find that spark, again, so this beautiful and otherwise proud city can remain upright and honest.
RICHARD HUGHES, Cleveland, Tenn.
Democrats fabricated the 'war on women'
Rhetorical question: At what point are artistic license and journalistic freedom accountable to the truth? Clay Bennett's depiction of two drones, one Democratic, the other Republican, the former waging war on terrorism and the latter waging war on women, crosses any reasonable distinction between fact and fiction.
"War on women" became a Democratic campaign slogan about a year ago, coinciding with law student Sandra Fluke's fabrications about the cost of her birth control pills. Not only were her claims about the need for government to mandate employer provision of contraception and abortifacients spurious, but there was never any substance attached to the so-called war. It was a smear campaign aided and abetted by many in the media, including now our own Mr. Bennett. It was to the Republicans' shame that they allowed the ridiculous charges to go unanswered.
So, who's on the side of women? Is it the conservatives who offer free prenatal and postnatal services through various nonprofit agencies, or is it Planned Parenthood which shows profits in the tens of millions while collecting federal money in the hundreds of millions?
GARY LINDLEY, Lookout Mountain, Ga.