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Letters, May 21-24: Get rid of unwanted guns

Get rid of unwanted guns

The Utah Legislature has made it incredibly easy to buy a gun. You don’t even need to get a background check if you don’t want to. You just buy the gun from a private seller, who isn’t required to do a background check.

Disposing of an unneeded or unwanted gun is another story. An unwanted or unneeded gun is an accident waiting to happen. There are so many guns in Utah that they are often not safely stored. They could be stolen and used in a violent crime. Or used in a suicide or domestic violence incident. The safe thing to do with an unwanted gun is to get rid of it. For someone who does not want to sell the gun—and take the risk that it will be bought by a criminal or a careless gun owner or somebody considering suicide, there are not a lot of choices. The local police department might not take it or might just resell it.



One way to make sure that your unwanted gun will never kill or harm anyone is to bring it to the “Guns to Gardens” event on Saturday, June 11, 2022 at the Community of Grace Presbyterian Church (2015 Newcastle Drive in Sandy) at 2:30 p.m. (Other sponsors are the Gun Violence Prevention Center of Utah, the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship and RAWtools.)

Make sure the gun is unloaded and store it in your trunk. Your gun will be disarmed and the raw materials will be sent to RAWtools to be made into garden tools.



Be safe—make sure that your unwanted gun is destroyed and won’t harm anyone.

Ed Rutan

Pinebrook

Board Member, Gun Violence Prevention Center

Nightly rentals bring disturbances

While I understand the concern expressed in Andrew Morphet’s guest editorial about the financial impact of limiting nightly rentals on owners who rent, there is another side to this argument. Those of us who are owner occupiers are adversely affected by the market for nightly rentals spreading into what were once quiet and mainly or sometimes entirely residential neighborhoods.

My experience shows that such rentals are considerably more likely to result in disturbances. Those who are only staying for a short time are much less inclined to adjust their behaviour to be neighborly than those who must interact with the same neighbors over an extended period. When it becomes apparent that a disturbance is occurring it is too late for a neighbor to take action to correct the behaviour (and often rather frightening to attempt to do so). Our police have better things to do than be called out to shut down loud and out of control parties.

The regular use of nightly rentals for stag and hen parties and similar events significantly reduces the quality of life for those with the misfortune (through no fault of their own) of living next door, with little or no consequences for those organizing the event (or facilitating it by renting their property). The relative anonymity of online booking tools like AirB&B makes this problem even worse.

I would love to see (and vote for) tighter restrictions on nightly rentals in residential areas.

Regards,

David Rennie

Prospector

Letters

School district must lead

Park City School District is being investigated by the federal Office of Civil Rights for persistent and ongoing violations. It’s a very big deal that has a lot of our community on edge.



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