Readers Write: Trade war with China, Trump, mass shootings, electric scooters

Yes, the trade war will hurt Minnesota farmers, but billions in taxpayer subsidies will buoy them through this crisis ("Chinese trade move a 'body blow' to farmers," Aug. 7). China still forces trade-secret exchanges, ignores patents, threatens the South China Sea and restricts markets. The "thin red line" has been crossed and this strong president will have none of it!

Consumers are not "victims," as any student of economics would know. They will seek alternate products, and U.S. business in China will relocate to meet those demands. We don't need cadmium trinkets, formaldehyde sheet rock, tainted pet food or substandard steel.

The tremendous internal economic pressure will cause something to happen inside China. War? Revolution? Concessions? Let's find out.

Farmers have enough to deal with, facing the climate crisis and now the trade war with China threatening them with bankruptcy if they are not bailed out from the public coffers. Now from President Donald Trump's anti-science and anti-environment bully pulpit, international diplomacy is being trumped by divisive, economy-crippling sanctions against Iran and trade wars with China and other countries.

A second term in office would follow this same trajectory, raising the likelihood of war and worsening the spiritual, ethical and economic bankruptcy of an increasingly disunited America.

But the crisis could present an opportunity and translate into the rise of global cooperation and sustainable economies based on the realities of climate change, which no one in public office should continue to deny. And Trump could go down in history as the catalyst for a more enlightened and less self-serving governance.

An Aug. 7 letter writer views President Donald Trump as a nationalist. But when given the choice to believe our nation's intelligence agencies regarding Russian interference in our elections, Trump chose to believe Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin's denial. Trump also has not pushed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to stop blocking a vote to pass election security money before this coming election.

In an Aug. 7 commentary ("Gun violence: Minnesota, like the U.S., suppresses data,") former legislator Wes Skoglund claims that the Minnesota Department of Health is prohibited by state law from collecting and analyzing shooting data.

However, the law, which Skoglund cites directly in his column, only prohibits the collection of data by the Minnesota Department of Health on individuals related to lawful gun ownership and permit-to-carry information.

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety publishes an annual permit-to-carry report outlining the numbers of permits issued, applied for, denied, suspended and revoked — along with information on self-defense and crimes committed by permit holders.

The existing law was put into place to protect law-abiding gun owners from precisely the sort of attacks we are now seeing in other states — and politically motivated research that tries to reach a foregone conclusion.

The author claims that collecting information about "deliberate, accidental, haphazard or suicidal shootings" by the Minnesota Department of Health is illegal. Yet, one can visit the department's website today and see information on suicides, firearm injuries and homicides involving firearms. Similar information is available on a national level on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website.

The commentary "Our data unveiled four commonalities of shooters" (Aug. 9) provided an excellent case for making sense out of the gun violence and what "we" can do to end it. As a retired Hennepin County Juvenile Court judicial officer, I think the conclusions of the column that early trauma can have an enormous impact on children rings so very true.

But I would also encourage our policymakers and others to read the book "Ghosts from the Nursery" by Robin Karr-Morse and Meredith S. Wiley, first published in 1997 and updated in 2014. This book provides an enormous amount of scientific evidence on the advances in neurobiological research, which show that prenatal exposure to alcohol and other drugs and trauma in the early years of a child's life can be the seeds that lead to later violence. The impact of trauma on the human brain after birth has become more and more recognized as harmful, but prenatal alcohol and drug exposure during the chemical and structural formation of the brain is missing from the discussion. Early identification and understanding of both harms can prevent the senseless violence. We have the scientific evidence and tools to stop this insanity.

The good commentary on four commonalities of shooters (trauma, crisis, validation, means) gives four places (schools, colleges, churches, employers) where prevention can start.

Paraphrasing by naming these five sources of influence may be helpful: A good father, a good mother, a good teacher, a good friend, a good boss. Maybe only one in five works, but more is better, and with all five any kid hits the jackpot — not only in preventing a negative but maybe creating a positive.

In an informative article on the pluses and minuses of rent-to-ride electric scooters ("Last mile or last straw?" Aug. 8), the author writes, "In addition to being fun, the zero-emission scooters have lured riders by being cheap, accessible and eco-friendly alternatives to cars." But that's a mistake: These scooters may have to be recharged using electricity generated from power plants — which can release emissions — or, with luck, using a solar or wind array recharging system that does not pollute nearly as much. If the system uses Xcel's plant power, it is using coal, natural gas, biomass, or nuclear power.

In other words, they are not "zero-emissions" as stated.

Electric scooter companies should first be required to carry enough insurance to cover injuries to nonusers. Pedestrians are going to get hit by these things and will need to be compensated for their injuries. We know the riders are not going to be able to cover it unless they are required to have insurance as well.

Second, riders need to be better-educated in the laws that apply. The scooters belong on the road, not on the sidewalks and pedestrian pathways. Traffic laws apply.

And Minnesota should consider scooters as motorized vehicles, so drunken-driving laws can apply as well. I can't wait for someone to get nailed on a DWI using one of these things.