Second Amendment support

I just got off the phone with Jeff Crank’s office. They assured me that Congressman Crank supports the Second Amendment but does not support impeaching Secretary Kristi Noem.

I wrote a letter to the editor, published in the Gazette regarding Noem calling Renee Good a “domestic terrorist.” My argument was that if she couldn’t identify what a domestic terrorist is, she didn’t deserve the position. I didn’t foresee writing a follow up letter.

Now, after the shooting of Alex Pretti this weekend for exercising his Second Amendment rights, she has doubled down. Not only was Pretti, lawfully armed and a legal protester, also called a “domestic terrorist”; but now she all but said protesters have no right or reason to lawfully carry weapons. This makes the grave and dangerous mistake of selectively applying the Second Amendment.

I am a staunch Second Amendment supporter. No, it is not written for hunters. It was the Anti-Federalists, led by figures like Patrick Henry (“Give me liberty or give me death!”) who forced the inclusion of the Bill of Rights on the Federalists, who primarily wanted to hand power and control to the aristocratic elite.

Pretti was exercising his Second Amendment in the exact spirit of our Anti-Federalist founding fathers. Before the death of the classical conservative party alongside Senator John McCain’s passing, I was a Republican, born and raised. I believed in the ideals of small government, states’ rights, and constitutional law.

While other countries have provisions, the U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted the Second Amendment to protect an individual’s right to possess firearms, largely separate from service in a militia. Now, the Department of Homeland Security (and the FBI director, for that matter) is telling Americans they can’t bring their lawfully owned weapon to a lawful protest. This is a direct attack on 2nd Amendment rights and freedoms. If you don’t support the 2nd Amendment when it is applied lawfully by someone you disagree with, then you don’t support the 2nd Amendment.

Secretary Noem needs to be impeached. A bipartisan, congressional, open investigation into the murder of Alex Pretti is essential to restoring faith and maintaining our social contract with leaders. Our local congressman, Jeff Crank, needs to support this.

CW2(Ret.) Erik Mohr

Colorado Springs

Rich are getting richer

As a constituent of Congressman Jeff Crank I am responding to his letter in Sunday’s Gazette. Rep. Crank scolds Colorado for continuing to tax tips and overtime, a practice which has always been done.

Let’s turn the tables a bit and look at the $1.4+ billion dollars that have lined the pockets of our President since he took office in Jan. 2025 (which, by the way, is 16,822 times the median household income in the U.S.) With multiple sources validating those numbers, how much will Trump be contributing to the IRS? You guessed it, we’ll never know because he refuses to share his tax returns. His Great Big Beautiful Bill offered more plump tax breaks to billionaires and multibillion dollar corporations, yet took away subsidies for medical insurance for low income earners.

So Rep. Crank thinks Colorado is harming it’s citizens? I think he’d do us a big favor by focusing on how the rich are getting richer thanks to the Trump economic policies and cutthroat capitalism, while the other 99% are working their a***s off and falling farther and farther behind.

Sue Bigus

Colorado Springs

Terrifying history is strange

My mom was a young teenager in Nazi Germany.

She would often tell us how terrifying it was when a friend suddenly disappeared and was later reported killed.

Or, when other friends were confined in concentration camps and never returned.

We would smile politely at those stories. And while we understood them, intellectually, the emotional trauma was inaccessible.

Of late, I am beginning to understand her terror.

Isn’t history strange?

William Thomas

Colorado Springs

Integrate the good and bad

Over the recent holidays I was on a cruise with approximately 4,000 other people including crew members of the ship. Multiple languages were spoken among a variety of people from different cultures. That’s when I was reminded of my own tendency to be a racist, even as a Hispanic elderly woman.

Groups of individuals in public areas of the ship such as the buffet, who spoke too loudly for my comfort level in a language I could not understand irritated me to the extreme of choosing to express my discomfort to them in a rude manner. Fortunately, their response was polite and friendly instead of becoming rightfully defensive toward me since it was not my place to teach them etiquette.

As we cruised, the news on TV reminded us of what was going on, racially, in this country with ICE going primarily after non Caucasians, even if they were US citizens. Fortunately security went smoothly each time we were on a land tour with electronic facial recognition – sufficient to get on and off the ship without any complications.

As anticipated, land tours around different parts of the world show the differences between the rich and poor sections of a country; regardless of what continent you happen to be traveling around.

At the end of the cruise, in Los Angeles, as we got off the ship, there was a group of about 15 uniformed security men who could have easily intimidated me because of the color of my skin. Instead, through divine intervention, I felt safe, secure and blessed the minute I stepped on American soil.

How I wish people in this country, and the world, for that matter, were able to integrate the good and bad within every one of us. After all, none of us is perfect; the question is, how do we deal with the dark side of us without hurting anyone?

How about addressing the media, to reduce the negativity that is fed to their viewers, radio listeners, and the like? After all, evil thoughts can easily be assimilated by the gullible who believe everything the media says.

Marcela Gaumer

Colorado Springs