In light of the recent local gun violence and in response to those calling for gun law reform, I’m in agreement with the Second Amendment crowd that gun rights are important in America and we should not be placing more restrictions on that right to bear arms.
When we take away civil liberties, the first to be affected are the poor, disabled and people of color.
When they try to frame it politically, gun activists say we can’t take the rights of the majority away because of a few bad actors, and they will fight and die on that hill. Hot take: now do health care.
I’ve listened to our GOP leaders cry foul over what they call abuse of our health care system by a minority group that doesn’t pay into it but gets all the benefits. The opposite is true. Undocumented workers cannot receive the tax subsidies the Republicans are calling for defunding, and often still pay the taxes that support it.
The Trump capitulants say that we have to take away the subsidies that benefit actual people in huge numbers, including their own, because of a few they claim are gaming the system. To play within their narrative, let’s say it is true that a small number of undocumented people are receiving benefits they don’t deserve, breaking the law. That doesn’t mean we should take away everyone’s subsidies and increase our already outrageously overpriced health care costs that will literally lead to more preventable deaths.
All they’re getting is health care, not ammunition and guns that literally take innocent lives every day.
Keep the guns, keep the health care.
Jack Wise, Salt Lake City
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