Switzerland is not a fair comparison

Re: “When will adults take student safety seriously?” March 12 letter to the editor

A letter writer in Sunday’s Open Forum asks why Switzerland, which he cites as having the highest concentration per capita of semi-automatic and fully automatic gun ownership in the world, has the lowest incidents of gun violence. Well, it might be that Switzerland has a population of 8.7 million people as opposed to 334 million people who live in the United States. It’s about the size and population of Virginia. It also leads the developed world in environmental protection. It doesn’t have the poverty, the homelessness, the fractured politics, the racism or gun culture that we do.

The point is that our numbers, diversity, and history equal a lot more complexity to the problems we need to solve. Comparing apples to grapes just doesn’t work.

Jeannie Dunham, Denver

Who is the most obsessed about guns?

Re: “Assault rifle lapel pins disrespectful,” March 15 letter to the editor

The letter writer has it 100% correct when he states, “Obsessiveness over an inanimate object might be an indicator” (regarding mental health issues). He needs to tell that to, and convince, the gun-control obsessives.

Richard D VanOrsdale, Broomfield

Let’s slow down the reckless drivers

I just don’t feel safe driving on the streets of Denver anymore. What is it with all these reckless drivers?

Denver already has one of the longest yellow lights on its traffic signals compared to any other city I have been in, yet drivers frequently speed through red lights.

In northwest Denver, the city has added a number of roundabouts to slow down traffic. Yet despite the yield signs on all four ways of the roundabout, cars often speed through them, paying no attention to the other drivers.

We need cameras on intersections that have frequent accidents. And in place of roundabouts, either keep the stop signs or put in dips or speed bumps. Sadly, some people are more afraid of damaging their cars speeding through a dip or speed bump than they are of killing another person.

Catherine Hanisits, Denver

Life in the cubicle won’t be the same

Re: “But I loved ‘Dilbert’ …” March 11 commentary

I agree completely with Patty Limerick’s column. And I might add, “judge ‘Dilbert’ by the comic strip, not by Scott Adams’ separate offhand comments.”  If we were all judged this way by comments we may have once made, nobody could publish anything in the newspapers!

Richard Postma, Littleton

Thank you, Patty Limerick, for writing what I’ve been thinking these past weeks … I never caught a whiff of Scott Adams’ racist behavior in “Dilbert,” which was my favorite comic strip of the day.

There’s a lot of pressure to be perfect in our culture.

Thomas Rehnberg, Greeley

New GOP chair needs to face the party forward

Re: “Party picks election denier for chairman,” March 12 news story

So the Colorado Republican Party on Saturday picked Dave Williams as its new chairman. It appears the party was unable to muster many adults for this assembly. Williams, an election denier, is the guy who tried to get “Let’s Go Brandon” on a primary ballot with his name. Thankfully the voters saw what they had and voted for the other guy.

In his acceptance speech, he says that the Republicans didn’t do badly on issues but lacked having a “wartime leader.” Really? So all the candidates that Trump supported (think Arizona, Ohio, Pennsylvania, etc, and who were usually election deniers) lost due to a lack of wartime leaders? It certainly appears Williams has a real problem grasping reality.

As a Republican, I can only hope he grows up a bit and represents the majority who aren’t still talking about the 2020 election and look forward to a new future with new ideas and candidates.

Michael Scanlan, Arvada