A surprise on the newsstands
I never thought I see the Reno News & Review again after that last issue at the start of the pandemic. Six months ago I learned you survived online. This week I saw the newspaper on the newsstands once again. I don’t know how you did it, but I’m glad to see you back in print with all the regulars like Bob Grimm and Modern World and some new writers and important news like the growth and sprawl (RN&R, June 1) story. Welcome back! You were missed.
Bob Carponi, Sparks
Good to see you back in print
I gave up reading the RNR back when it was last printed. The content seemed directed at the drug addicts, tweakers and hookers, rather than for normal working class folks in Northern Nevada. Even the ads seemed to be from all of the local drug trade with very few respectable businesses bothering to support the narrative that anyone making a profit was evil and any form of vice is desirable.
Your June 2022 edition appears to be a little more toward the mainstream. I hope that you will continue to tack back towards normalcy (at least normal for Reno, anyway). Our community is starved for good honest news reporting about local issues. The RGJ and local radio and TV news have become a collective, very bad joke. The local government public information officers have grown accustomed to sending out propaganda and not getting challenged by any of the local news organizations. Instead, the parrots at the RGJ and the local electronic media, simply post whatever the government propagandists send to them; misspellings and all.
Although your print edition is constrained by the number of printed pages, perhaps you can use the print edition to present the core elements of some of your more in-depth reports and then have greater detail stored on your website.
It is too bad that I can no longer afford to live here. I would like to be here to see the RNR surpass the RGJ as Reno’s newspaper of record and our community’s most trusted news source.
J. Tyler Balance, Reno
Unbridled growth a plague
Forget COVID, Reno’s plague is unrestricted growth (RN&R, June 1), and the city council is our failed immune system. The politicians line their pockets with developers’ money as they bulldoze affordable housing and replace it with so-called luxury apartments that only rich people can afford and rising home prices that force all but the 1 percent out of the ownership market. It’s BS just to shrug our shoulders and say that the American Dream of owning a home or living in a decent rental are obsolete. That’s the fat cat money grubbers talking. Citizens need to stand up to the BS and demand affordable housing for everyone, not just the wealthy. Let’s get some councilmembers in office who aren’t in the pockets of any rich developer who rolls into town.
Andy Welsher, Reno
Guns and posers; repeal 2nd Amendment
It’s campaign silly season on TV and once again the Nevada GOP candidates are finding their way into the hearts of the famous “low information” voters by sashaying around the videoscape with guns at the ready. Rifles, shotguns and pistols as penis substitutes are de rigor for any GOP candidate who wants to avoid actual issues while at the same time pressing the Second Amendment button among fearful NRA fans. That’s particularly disgusting this year, when the Silver state’s wanna-be Wyatt Erps (including a Barney Fife sheriff from Las Vegas, some jerk named Lee who is running for an office that is not Game Warden, and Dean Heller’s whole family plinking in the desert) continued running their shoot em up TV spots as massacres kept coming, including the horrific tragedy at the Texas school.
I own several guns, but I quit the NRA many years ago when that death cult equated even the most common sense gun control efforts as a path to confiscation. It’s happening again as Republicans in Congress block even minimal efforts to get a handle on the problem of mass-murder assault rifles and easy access to firearms. In the end, the only real solution is to repeal the Second Amendment and replace it with common sense laws. The National Guard is our “well regulated militia.” The Second Amendment has been used as a blanket denial of common sense controls for too long. Let’s get rid of it for good so the cultists can’t continue to misinterpret the Constitution at the expense of murdered children and adults.
Gary L. Watson, Sparks
Gun control: Pass laws to lessen the slaughter
Gun violence. It appears there are two types of gun owners.
We have responsible people who use them for hunting, home defense, and for sport.
There is another group who believe only an AK47 will keep the evil government and zombie hoards at bay. These latter folks often become obsessed with acquiring great numbers of automatic weapons, and huge stashes of ammunition. And they will likely shoot your ass if you attempt to curtail their right to open carry, etc. These are the folks most likely to leave their weapons out so junior can take them to go massacre the kids at school he doesn’t like.
Gun control is a polarizing issue and we are not going to solve this anytime soon. However here are a couple of ways we might be able to lessen the slaughter.
1. Mandatory gun locks with all gun sales. This will not stop anyone’s right to buy a gun, but it might keep little hormone-filled Johnny from shooting the hell out of the neighborhood. Every little bit helps.
2. Public pressure on the entertainment industry to knock off all the bang bang shoot them up movies we are inundated with. How many head shots do our kids need to watch before they start to believe that that is reality? No wonder we’re all screwed up.
3. Legalize physician assisted suicide (PAS). Huge numbers of gun deaths are from people shooting themselves for any number of reasons from being in terminal pain from an incurable illness, or having mental problems that might be corrected with a medical system that actually worked.
That’s my 70 cents worth adjusted for inflation.
WELCOME BACK RNR!!! So good to see you! Love to see you go weekly, how can we all make that happen??
Craig Bergland, Reno
The owner of a gun that is used with death resulting should automatically be charged with involuntary manslaughter. There should be no “terrible accidents”. Let a jury of peers determine whether the owner secured his/her weapon appropriately and responsibly.
I have a great idea. Let’s ban all guns (except for the politically connected) and then send the Gestapo door-to-door to collect them all. What could go wrong?