I would like to point out that Utah’s murder rate is just 1.3 per 100,000 and it has never had a school shooting. When Utah enacted its handgun carry laws in 1995, its murder rate was 3.9, three times higher than it is today. Canada’s murder rate is 1.8.

In each and every state that has passed a handgun carry law, all rates of crime have dropped immediately and significantly.

Jeff Gardiner

The writer and others haven’t taken the 6.5 per cent proposed tax increase in proper perspective. For me to have 6.5 per cent more money in my pocket to pay all the user fees along with this tax increase, I need at least a 10 per cent raise.

Secondly, as we know by the number of plant closures in Guelph, bankruptcies are up.

Gregory Cawsey’s column should be a must-read for all of the citizens of Guelph.

To our city council, please open your eyes, not our wallets, and prioritize the spending necessary to run our city. Put your wish lists where they belong: in the garbage. Stop all the high user-fee increases, for instance for water and sewage.

Stop trying to reinvent the wheel and try to manage what you have already, please! We can’t afford you.

– John McCuaig, Guelph

This right is being tested in the Florida legislature at the present time, where a bill making its way through that would allow citizens to “open carry” guns. If this bill is passed, Floridians will be permitted to go about their daily business packing a gun in full view for all to see. One member of the legislature seems to think that this will give the citizens the ability to challenge anyone attacking them.

The bill has three troubling components to it: It would allow “John Q. Citizen” to strap on one’s weapon of choice as they go about their daily business, it would allow guns to be carried in an open-carry fashion at universities and colleges, and it would forbid doctors to ask their patients if they own guns.

I wouldn’t want to be the supervisor who has the inevitable task of terminating someone’s employment in Florida. I think most reading this will agree that this kind of legislation does nothing to enhance the safety of the citizens in this state. And, in terms of a country with 300 million people and their gun-slinging mentality and a small but potent population of mentally disturbed individuals, the future is very bleak.

Sadly, the horrific shootings such as the one in Arizona will happen again.

Barry Ruhl

Southampton

Cawsey dismisses the argument that council should be considering what the city will be like in the next 50 or so years when society really starts to deal with global warming by saying that cars aren’t going away either.

They may all become electric, but they still require safe roads going forward. He also says that people live where they live and they have to have cars.

Much as people like Cawsey refuse to admit it, a lot of the cars are going to have to go away. And a lot of people are going to have to move closer to where they work (or close to public transit). Not everyone, not immediately, but a significant and growing fraction of the public.

If we invest billions of dollars into building roads instead of public transit on the assumption that auto use is going to continue to grow the way it has in the last 100 years we are simply throwing our tax dollars down a rat hole.

The problem is that when confronted by significant change many, even seemingly confident and influential people, simply cannot understand the issues.

They think that what has worked in the past will work in the future.

This is often a safe and prudent way to live your life, and the way we build up professions and government bureaucracies. But sometimes it is disastrously foolish, and I believe we are in one of those times.

Bill Hulet, Guelph

Posted by: The Viggen | December 07, 2010 at 10:25 PM

Dear Editor – In mid-January one of these energy-saving “curly lights” exploded in my kitchen. It shattered the light globe into long spearlike fragments. What shocked me was the fact that a lot of these were all around where I had been sitting a few minutes before.

It scared the daylights out of me to the point where I called the police. Not a rational step, but at that moment, I was terrified.

The woman who answered the phone told me this was not a police matter, but to complain to the place where the bulbs were purchased.

From this point on I was referred from one place to another. Personnel at Canadian Tire told me these bulbs have to always be inserted in an upright position and Guelph Hydro referred me to my electrician.

My electrician came and examined both the light fixture and bulbs. He noted that on each bulb one leg was severed and that there was ballast on the outside of the bulbs and the sockets.

He also noticed that both the fixture and the wiring was new. He told me that these bulbs were similar in construction to a neon light.

He could not find the cause as to why these bulbs would explode, but he wasn’t surprised at the damage. He explained that when a neon light explodes, there is a lot of power released. The next day he contacted a spokesperson of a company that makes these lights. As a result, he learned that these “curly bulbs” should not be put in an enclosed glass fixture. He also stated that the upright position was nonsense.

Later a friend took apart the light and poked up into the insulation of the ceiling where he discovered moisture. He instantly wanted to know if a toilet had overflowed or anything else that could have caused moisture to be present there.

I knew that moisture could not have come from those places. Since the light was close to a window I knew there was an eavestrough right above the window. We observed that the eavestrough had a large build up of ice and snow resulting in moisture seeping into the insulation and as a result a “short” was caused.

Moisture caused the short, not the bulb.

When I read Community Editorial Board columnist Gregory Cawsey’s recent column (“As the bulb breaks, the fable will fall,” Guelph Mercury, Feb. 2), I started to think about the mercury and radiation equation.

Mercury is a highly toxic gas at room temperature and radiation is already present in our homes. Parents are warned to keep children two metres back from the television and doctors advise their pregnant patients to not use microwaves.

We also have computers and cellphones that emit radiation. Do we also need radiation coming from our lights in our homes? We’d have it coming to us in all directions.

Here are questions I believe we all should have answers to:

A moisture buildup after a shower, a toilet overflowing and causing some water damage, how much can these bulbs handle before exploding?

Could lightning wreak havoc on a home if it followed the electrical wires of that home and what could happen if many bulbs were affected?

Would you have peace of mind leaving your children at home as they entertained friends knowing how rough they can be at times and that accidents happen? For example, knocking over lamps with mercury-filled bulbs that contain a toxic gas that is invisible and odourless.

As the voltage and wattage increases, does the radiation also increase?

Does the number of bulbs in a fixture increase the distance that you have to stay away from it in order to be safe from radiation?

There is one contradictory factor: The company spokesperson stated these bulbs cannot be placed in an enclosed glass fixture. What about the new energy-saving bulbs that resemble an incandescent bulb? These are curly bulbs disguised by a glass cover.

Frankly, when they say these bulbs will save us $50 in energy costs, my health and the health of my children is more important to me. To save money, train yourself to turn off unused lights. Use natural light from the sun as much as you can.

I have heard that the incandescent bulb will be cancelled in Ontario by the year 2012. Personally, I think that they should put the brakes on that idea until they have a proven safe product.

– Joy MacKiddie, Guelph