Dear Editor,
School is back and I’m honestly not too excited for new learners or returning. With more and more gun violence it makes me terrified for my friends and the young kids just trying to go to school, to get an education. Kids shouldn’t have to be scared to learn or enter a school building.
I feel with the rise in gun violence it’s only a matter of time before another one strikes. I remember when I was in elementary school and there was an attacker on the campus. Luckily nothing happened and we all got out safely, but not many are that lucky.
I get people who want to be able to protect themselves but I feel this is doing more harm than good. Owning a gun should not be a part of one’s personality. It’s a weapon and I think people are forgetting that these days.
I believe we should have stricter gun laws. Taking what we know from Japan and their laws on guns, we can see Japan barely has any problems when it comes to gun violence. In fact, in 2017 three people died in Japan, while in the same year in the US, the death count was over 40, 000 people in shootings, says MJ Toledo from Breaking Asia (2019). Japan has these very strict rules on how to own and get a gun, and I believe it’s time we start looking at it and maybe incorporating it. In Japan, you have to take a class on guns and how to handle them before owning one, as well as background checks to make sure the person who owns the gun is stable.
However, the problem with gun laws is there is not so black and white, as disarming the middle class can still do harm. Gun laws are great in theory and when it comes to stopping school shootings and shooting in general, but then we also have the problem of police brutality.
It’s a hard conversation but it’s one we need to have and take more seriously.
Seán Colbert
Dear Editor,
Part two: Copper World’s processing facilities will include a solvent extraction and electro-winning facility, a sulfide concentrator, a concentrate leach facility and an acid plant. The leach solution from a copper concentrate leach facility will be combined with solution from a separate oxide leaching circuit and treated in the solvent extraction/electrowinning facility to produce copper cathode.
The concentrate leach facility will also produce sulfur which will be processed into sulfuric acid at the acid plant and then used on the oxide leach pads to leach copper from oxide ore. They will build also build three conventional tailings storage facilities.
Now, I’m not a chemist… but when the monsoon comes and causes the bottom of Sycamore Canyon to turn into whitewater rapids as it does most years, what’s it bringing down from the mountains?
All the facilities I mentioned above will need to be built. They are about to own privately a path from the mountain along the canyon’s edge to Sahuarita Rd. There will be constant truck traffic during the construction of these buildings over the next few years. Dust, noise, destruction of animal habitat will be ongoing, 24/7. That could be starting very soon.
Buying land is not illegal, but it’s harder to regulate what happens on private property. It just seems to me that they are going out of their way to avoid being regulated or having to get permits. Why?
Phase 1 would be used to mine copper from only private land on both sides of the mountain range, and would require only state and local permits to operate. Phase 2 would extend operations onto federal land and would require additional permission from the U.S. Forest Service. Their report mentions they may extend Phase 1…so they can keep going if permit is a problem.
I’m not even getting into groundwater issues or their item in their report about using driverless load haulers. What could possibly go wrong? Google “driverless load hauler accidents.” It’s a fun reading session.
I just think it’s a bad idea to allow this so close to a populated area. It will create jobs. But property values will plummet, people will move, we will become a dirty, dusty mining town. Is it worth it? Think fast- they are up there blading away while you are reading this.
Cathy McGrath
