Don't Use Medicaid

How can any BYU couple use WIC or Medicaid?

"But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." Taking government money is not providing for your family - it forces me and everyone else to provide for them instead.

Don't tell me it's impossible not to. I know several fathers who work two jobs and go to school. How a husband and wife in Provo can both work and still need a handout is beyond me.

As an apostle taught in the Marriott Center, "If you don't have the finances to complete your education, drop out a semester and go to work and save. You'll be a better man or woman for so doing. You will have preserved your self-respect and initiative."

Teancum Smith

Provo

Less-Efficient Web Site

I'm so glad the BYU Web site was changed from its old working format to this less efficient reformatted one. The way they shrank the tabs and rearranged them was just masterful; especially considering the links usually take you to the same old unmodified link sites. Nothing makes me feel better than to know that BYU is hard at work following unnecessary company trends in an effort to waste my tuition. Yeah for job security. Go bureaucracy.

Jason Herbert

Morgantown, W.Va.

Fewer Guns = Fewer Deaths

The idea that guns are merely tools, and neither good nor evil, is an oversimplification at best. If you apply that logic to other objects, it sounds ridiculous. For example, a guillotine is a tool, but it's hard to see a justifiable use for it. And what about WMDs? Would you consider them "merely tools?"

A gun has only one main purpose: to wound or kill. Granted, you could kill someone with a knife or hammer, but they are mainly designed to chop vegetables and build houses. There is no other purpose for which a gun was originally designed than to wound or kill.

When the founding fathers wrote the Second Amendment to the Constitution, the only guns in existence were highly inaccurate, single-shot, muzzle-loaded contraptions. Times and technology have changed since then.

Modern politicians should reflect on whether the Second Amendment was originally intended to include weapons such as assault rifles and automatic handguns.

I am truly sorry for anyone affected by the tragedy in Salt Lake City. The answer to a problem like this isn't more guns or weapons permits. Some individuals may tout the need for those things, but their beliefs are often founded on a notion that bad people will find guns no matter what.

However, most of these guns aren't obtained through an illegally smuggled black market-they are simply stolen from people who obtained them legally.

The logical answer to reducing gun violence is to reduce gun ownership. Pure and simple.

Brian Bowen

Claremont, Calif.

Media bias against guns

I would like to comment on the sparse and liberally biased reporting of the tragedy that took place at Trolley Square Feb. 12. Of the six reports I read, (one being featured in The Daily Universe on Thursday) not a single one reported more than a sentence or two on the heroic efforts of the off-duty officer who stopped the gunman.

It was as if all of the reporters and journalists conspired to cover up the responsible carrying and defensive use of a firearm by a law-abiding citizen. Instead, each news story reported, with great detail, the atrocious crimes of the killer and the weapons used in the killings.

It's no surprise to me that the Associated Press reported with such liberal, anti-gun zeal, but Utah's own Deseret Morning News and the Salt Lake Tribune also reported with the same bias. The only thing more tragic than the bloodshed that took place was the fact that there weren't more responsible armed citizens to prevent the killings. As a proud concealed weapons permit holder, I am proud to live in a place where our Second Amendment rights are so well protected. It is a shame, though, that the media's liberal bias satanizes or simply ignores the responsible concealed firearms carry.

James Potts

Alanta

New Web Site Confusing

What is the fastest way to confuse and aggravate 30,000 people? - Change the BYU Web site. The new modular layout and flashy picture arrangement throws me into a quagmire of uncertainty and doubt. I am complaining because I don't like change. I understand I have been invited for the past month, with the rest of the student body, to preview the Web site and submit my comments. I, of course, chose not to do this. But this minor point is beside my argument.

All that matters is that it took me five minutes last night to get onto AIM and I am not the only victim here. This morning, when I tried checking online payroll, it took me approximately three minutes just to find it. This is hardly an economical use of my precious time. Simple online activities, which in happier days took one minute or less, are now a dreaded part of my day. Bring back the old Web site! Rally behind me, conservative student body. I know I am not alone.

Emily Kimball

Baltimore, Md.

BYUSA Faux Pas

I attended Saturday's Concert Series performance, which was put on by BYUSA. The performance was enjoyable and the event seemed to be well organized. The only thing that hindered the concert was the master of ceremonies. You would think BYUSA would have been a bit more selective in choosing a host for a crowd of 1,500 students.

Because of BYUSA's selection in host, I learned how BYUSA volunteers go through the lost and found bin, "take what [they] want and give what's left to the poor." Am I the only one who is aware of the political incorrectness in this statement?

BYUSA should want to make charitable donations, in which they should not treat certain income brackets in society as a sub-class, nor should they be sending "leftovers." What is that saying about our university? That we only give what we don't want? Or that the "poor" only deserves what BYUSA does not want or what their volunteers do not want to take from the unclaimed property of their fellow "poor" students?

I always thought that BYUSA was a great example of what a service-oriented organization is, but their great MC for the concert series has told me otherwise. Maybe I was just too "poor" to really understand what that even meant. BYUSA, got any good leftovers for me?

Erin Chapman

Austin, Texas

Copyright Brigham Young University 20 Feb 2007