While the anti-gun community may decry the Supreme Court’s decision in Heller, they forget that the criminals will always have guns. With the court’s decision, at least the rest of us can defend ourselves from them.

Gary Yee

San Francisco

Insensitive remarks

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As a retired teacher of the deaf, I would just like to say how insulted and angered I was by Mr. Gary Hardeman’s very insensitive letter to the editor (Letters, June 26) entitled, “Helpless me.” He sarcastically speaks for “all the deaf mutes in The City” by condemning Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier for her very justified and sensitive call for the captioning “of any TV displayed in public.”

First of all, the term “deaf mutes” is insulting and passé. Second of all, what is wrong with helping to communicate a strictly oral presentation so that our deaf citizens can be included in our democracy? Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier is to be commended for her excellent suggestion, and Mr. Hardeman is to be condemned for his “mindless idiot” comments.

Don Havis

San Mateo

Banking on Obama?

I see that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton recently had a private meeting, following which it was announced that he would raise money for her and she would campaign for him.

I fail to see any distinction between the conduct of Hillary Clinton and that of Eliot Spitzer’s call girl, Ashley Dupré. They both are faking affection for a man in exchange for large sums of money.

Richard Ryan

Novato

Wet news is bad news

If the city decides to ban plastic bags for newspapers, it is going to be bad. We need a plastic bag for each newspaper, in case if it rain or else the paper will be soaked outside your door and get ruined.

Ben Lin

San Francisco

Who are the wiser heads?

Jack Hitchcock complains about columnist Jay Ambrose’s statement that, “‘the calculations of a number of historians’ show that the Bay of Pigs missile crisis arose from President J.F. Kennedy’s ineptitude” (Letters, June 26).

Hitchcock asks: “I wonder if the ‘number of historians’ was so small he [Ambrose] couldn’t name any?”

Hitchcock further decries Ambrose’s statement that the Bush administration used “care” in dealing with North Korea. He accuses Ambrose of “ignoring the fact that many wiser heads here and abroad made enough noise to force the Bushies to reverse their military involvement.”

I wonder if the number of “many wiser heads” was so small Hitchcock “couldn’t name any?”

Jane L. Sears

Burlingame

Missing facts

The point that Marc D. Stern made (“Will gay rights trample religious freedom?” June 19) ignores several critical facts.

First: Religious groups have a history of using their freedom to oppose the extension of civil rights to others, such as granting suffrage to women, equality to racial minorities, and the right to marry across racial differences.

Second: Some religious groups have used the argument of “morality” to impose censorship on the whole public, while hiding their own record of sexual abuse and immorality.

Third: Churches and synagogues are free to marry whoever meets their requirements, but those marriages are only given civil rights and status by the authority of the state.

Four: Religious organizations are given nonprofit tax-exempt status by the state.

If such organizations receive tax monies, the same rules should apply to them as to any other nonprofit organization; that is, there can be no discrimination.

Fifth: The question of who has been trampling human rights seems obvious.

Rev. Paul R. Brenner

San Francisco

No exceptions for cyclists

The arrogance and sense of entitlement of some bicyclists is, indeed, remarkable. They run red lights without blinking an eye, endangering pedestrians, notably the elderly and frail.

It is a wonder that these 20-30-nothings are not pulled off their bikes to have the daylights thrashed out of them.

Now, they want to be legally entitled to crash the red lights-using caution and discretion. Why can’t their bikes be subject to the same obligations as an automobile? If an automobile goes against a red light, there is a penalty.

Why should they be an exception? Instead of this new law, they should be required to have licenses on their bicycles. And the Bicycle Coalition should bring these irresponsible cyclists to heel.

Herbert J. Weiner

San Francisco

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