LETTERS

— Have courage to fight

We knew it was coming. I believe it will happen again unless we have the courage to trash-can political correctness and arm our teachers so they can protect our children. Teachers’ unions should be screaming their heads off for the right of Arkansas teachers to be armed.

When this happens again, as always, the students and teachers will be at the mercy of the gunman, hiding and praying that he doesn’t choose their room. Teachers, society expects you to be willing to die for our children. It is inexcusable that you are not given the means to protect them and yourselves. You need to be lobbying your organization. Your lives are on the line, too.

How many of the teachers at Sandy Hook died heroically trying to stop the gunman with only a ruler in their hands? I believe one armed teacher would make a difference.

Please have the courage to demand that our teachers have the means to protect our children. No other solution will stop this carnage. Legislators, do you have the courage or will you merely wring your hands, wait for the next tragedy and pray that it is not your child’s school?

JEFFREY M. GRAHAM

Little Rock

Start national registry

In the wake of the latest school massacre, it seems the first knee-jerk response is, as usual, more gun-control laws. I think the following idea has more merit than additional gun laws.

Congress needs to pass legislation that would create a national registry of known potentially dangerous sociopaths and psychopaths for use in conjunction with the background check system currently used to screen firearms purchasers for criminal histories.

Doctors of all specialties would be required by law to submit names, addresses, phone numbers and diagnoses of their potentially dangerous patients to the newly created national registry. The registry would not be accessible by anyone, strictly confidential.

Doctors could be fined for each potentially dangerous sociopathic or psychopathic patient name they did not submit.

Patient privacy would not be an issue since the registry would not be accessible to anyone.

The application results would not reveal the reason for the rejected application, only that it had been rejected.

I think a balanced approach makes more sense than just more gun laws. More funding for mental health care is also necessary to treat or institutionalize the most dangerous of the patients.

PAUL BUDRUNAS

Springdale

We must take action

Attention gun owners: Please do everything in your power to keep your guns secure and out of the hands of mad men, insane people, and your small children. I know I do every day.

Attention lawmakers: Please make those who chose not to be responsible with their weapons criminally negligent.

Attention school boards, superintendents and city council members: Please make our schools as safe as possible by implementing bullet-proof glass, electric “buzzed in” security doors, concrete barrier posts in front of doors, fail-safe emergency buttons to lock down the school and alert police, security cameras on every door and hallway that can be seen on police smartphones or iPads, and hallways clearly marked with colors or numbers so police can identify an intruder’s position. No expense is too great to make our schools safer.

Attention citizens: Raise your voices, write letters, and do everything you can to help stop the violence in our country. If one more school-shooting nightmare occurs, and we, as parents, and as a society, have not done all we can to protect our kids at school, then shame on us.

Words will not stop a person bent on death and destruction; we must take action.

WESLEY MILLER

Cabot

Help the 98 percent

Whether the fiscal cliff is real or just another term perpetuated by the media remains to be seen. However, we do know that tax increases are just around the corner for everyone if Congress does not act now. Congress needs to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire for the wealthiest Americans and extend the tax cuts for the rest. It is simple. It is logical. There is no reason to not do this and do it now.

Complicated fixes such as looking at military spending, closing tax loopholes, and making changes to entitlements will take longer and can be dealt with in 2013. Contact your congressional representatives. Ask them to do the right thing. Ask them to keep the economic recovery moving forward. Ask them to extend tax cuts for the 98 percent and to do it before January 1.

TERI PATRICK

Little Rock

Time to do something

Stephen Spielberg’s Lincoln is very instructive. We have had do-nothing Congresses before. Abraham Lincoln not only waged a terrible war to save the Union and to eliminate slavery, he also waged a war in the halls of Congress to make sure that slavery was gone forever-a dirty war to pass the 13th Amendment.

If President Barack Obama is to achieve prosperity for our country today, he must use the power that he now has as a twice-elected president to leverage this obstinate, do-nothing Congress for the good of the country. They can no longer perpetuate the myth that a few dollars from the filthy rich will reduce jobs or that they represent the will of the people. The fate of the short-termers is to stand aside or to stand down and allow more enlightened lawmakers to move the country forward.

Our role is to continue to elect more congressmen who aren’t working for themselves but for the people. Our role is to learn enough to vote intelligently.

BILL RHODES

Mountain Home

It’s more than enough

I don’t think anyone really knows what to do about guns. I have one suggestion. Stop the manufacture of anything other than single-action six-shot revolvers, single-barrel and double-barrel shotguns, and single shot high-caliber rifles for big game.

Don’t attempt to take the automatic pistols and rifles from anyone, just fine anyone $10,000 or so if they are caught with one off their property. That would sure keep me from taking one out in public.

I think a six-shot single-action revolver would be enough firepower to protect me and my family from carjackers or robbers. I can’t recall the last time I was carjacked or robbed by more than six outlaws. We can do a lot of home protection with a double barrel shotgun. A single-shot high powered rifle will kill any big-game animal in North America. I haven’t seen any elephants or hippos around town that we would need more firepower to take down.

If you think you might need a rifle or pistol that would shoot hundreds of rounds per minute to overthrow our government, I would reconsider that thought. Our government has bombs and likes to use them. The rich folks that own the bomb factories really like to see them used. The bombs are expensive and can only be used one time, then the taxpayer has to buy a new one.

JOHN H. NELSON

Horatio

Editorial, Pages 11 on 12/31/2012

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