Readers Write: California shooting, calls for bipartisanship, Editorial Board advice (really?) for Ellison, red-blue in the governor's race and the (nonpartisan) Hennepin County sheriff's race

Instead of raving about a caravan of unarmed, desperate people, including mothers with small children, the president might do better to worry about white, male American shooters killing people all over the country. If you're a student or a teacher like me, you're in the line of fire. If you go out to your favorite club or bar like the latest innocent victims in California, you're in the line of fire ("Marine combat veteran kills 12 in rampage at California bar," StarTribune.com, Nov. 8). If you go your place of worship, as victims in Pittsburgh recently discovered, or if you go shopping, as other victims around the nation also recently found out, you're in the line of fire. Apparently only the halls of Congress, and airports with their metal detectors, are now safe. Are we going to have TSA or Homeland Security checkpoints everywhere? I would not be surprised to hear the NRA promote that idea as its next brilliant solution to gun violence in this nation.

I also don't want to hear from anyone about more "good" people with guns being the answer. The security guard and the police officer who responded to the 911 call (and who was trained, unlike most citizens), were among the victims in Wednesday night's deadly shooting.

We need to get our priorities straight in this nation. Are our children, or we ourselves, the blood sacrifice we are willing to pay for this easy access to handguns and semi-automatic weapons? It appears so. Our president, the day after elections, seemed intent on raising fears about a group of weary refugees seeking asylum. Meanwhile, another All-American guy with a gun destroyed more families and more young people's lives. And so it goes in this land of the supposedly free.

When will we learn? When will we hold our elected officials accountable? When do we stop the carnage?

• • •

AP: Dateline [city, state]

[date]

Another mass shooting has occurred. Police reported emergency calls from [name of establishment] about a white male with ["a" or number] [AK-47(s) or assault rifle(s) or semi-automatic rifle(s) or high-capacity handgun(s)] firing shots inside [establishment], killing [number] people and wounding [number]. The shooter also killed himself.

["Neighbors" or "acquaintances" or "co-workers"] said that he talked a lot about his guns and was a loner. The police have found other weapons at his home, all of which were bought legally, according to police.

Local politicians rushed to the scene, waiting for their turn to appear in front of local news cameras to decry the violence in America today and to offer their thoughts and prayers to the families of the victims.

With the election of DFL members to all major Minnesota state offices, the Star Tribune Editorial Board has echoed the words of our newly elected governor that we should put differences aside and work together for a better Minnesota ("Healing Minnesota, closing the divide," Nov. 8). I remind those on the opinion staff that President Donald Trump has been in office nearly two years now, and they still have not set aside their differences for a better USA. The board (entire newspaper, for that matter) has been non-supportive from every angle. Does this mean, then, that we only put aside differences when DFL candidates win and not do so when Republican candidates win? Or does setting aside differences apply to both parties? Which way is it, Editorial Board? Right now, your actions speak so loudly that I cannot understand what you are writing.

• • •

The big takeaway from the midterm elections in Minnesota is how our newly elected senators and representatives in Congress are going to "reach across the aisle" and work with Democrats and Republicans to "get the job done." Tina Smith and Angie Craig repeatedly made this promise and also pledged to get rid of the pesky PAC money coming into their campaigns. Sounds wonderful, doesn't it! I'll be watching closely to see how they come through with their campaign promises.

It seems the Editorial Board has a lot of haughty "Advice for state's next attorney general" (Nov. 8). Lacking the fortitude to take an endorsement position on this crucial race just a week ago and, before that, endorsing a candidate in the primary who came in last out of eight candidates (failing to even get 8 percent of the vote), now the board has the chutzpah to give unsolicited counsel to Keith Ellison?

Ellison and three of his siblings are attorneys. His other sibling is a medical doctor. He graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School, led the Legal Rights Center in Minneapolis and ran a law practice focused on civil rights and employment. In the U.S. House, he was a member of the Financial Services Committee and the Judiciary Committee. He wrote a key part of the Credit Cardholder's Bill of Rights and the Protecting Tenants in Foreclosure Act. And he just became the first African-American ever elected statewide to one of our five constitutional offices.

He doesn't need our advice.

The Star Tribune news staff (Nov. 8) declares that "Tim Walz's victory over Jeff Johnson was remarkable in scale and breadth," accompanied by a map showing most of Minnesota in red. Reality is that those of us in rural Minnesota have to live by the political wishes of those in urban Minnesota. I get it, but don't have to like it. South Dakota is looking better every day.

• • •

Though I voted otherwise, I commend Jeff Johnson for the high-quality campaign he ran in seeking the governorship. His thoughtful civility and quiet decorum should be a model for all future office seekers. A true "winner," Johnson represents the decency this world (including Minnesota) sorely needs. Jeff, all the best!

Of all the analysis after Tuesday's midterm elections, I found the Star Tribune graphic on the Hennepin County sheriff's race the most disturbing ("County split on sheriff," Nov. 8). There, in big, bold red and blue, was a city/suburban split more pronounced than any I had seen before. I believe this race was mostly about immigration, with the core city filled with immigrants and those who are happy living next to them, while the suburbs seem mostly afraid of immigrants and supportive of incumbent Sheriff Rich Stanek's position of zealous cooperation with ICE. I grew up Christian and maintain a robust religious practice, so I remember vividly the story of the Good Samaritan, a parable in Luke about a Hebrew traveler who was attacked by thieves and left half-dead. Ignored by the priest and high-ranking Levite who passed without helping, the crime victim was aided instead by a Samaritan, a member of a group despised by Jews at the time. Who is our enemy, then, Jesus asks us? Certainly not my Spanish-speaking or Hmong-speaking or Somali-speaking neighbors. These are treasured community members who join with me to make us all safer. Please stop demonizing them, taking their beloved children from them, shipping them off to tent cities in the desert or to the dangers they have fled. These ones are God's children, just as we are, to be treated just as we would ourselves be treated.

• • •

How unfortunate that the Star Tribune chose to use red and blue in the map of voting for Hennepin County sheriff, a nonpartisan position. We have enough red-blue discord without adding to it unnecessarily.