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Federal ‘jack-booted thugs’ are roaming Portland. Where is the NRA now? (Your letters)


To the Editor: Back in 1995, the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre complained, “The government is full of jack-booted thugs in bucket helmets” trampling on our constitutional rights. Now we see presumably federal government agents, this time in military camouflage, wearing no badges, forcing peaceable protesters into unmarked vehicles in Portland, Oregon. Where is the NRA and all those who complained then? Our President Donald Trump has threatened to do the same in other cities, in spite of the objections by the mayor and governor of the place it has already happened. Our president, his agency heads and the agents themselves swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. I took an oath to defend the Constitution, too. I’ve been retired from the Army almost a half century but two things upset me about this use of anonymous federal agents: First, it is wrong. Second, camouflage is intended for fighting in the field; so, who dispatched agents into a city clad in that costume? Stanley H. Roe Hamilton

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