PUBLIC VIEWPOINT: Vote For Young, Talented Leader

I am very disappointed in your endorsement for City Councilman Bob Goodwin and not Carlos Chicas.

Chicas is a very bright, articulate young man who can help this town in so many ways.

Chicas is talented, already has show some of his leadership ability and will be a great asset in the building of the international culture of this city, and will be role model for all types of young people who are a part of Rogers and the area.

Mr. Goodwin is a good man, but it is time to make use of some of the young talent when they areso well-qualifi ed.

ROGER MABRY

Rogers

OPEN CARRY IDIOTIC Oklahoma’s Senate Bill 1733, effective Nov. 1, allows the “Open Carry” of firearms in shoulder or hip holsters, if not carried into 1) places the primary purpose of which is to sell alcohol; 2) schools of any type; or 3) facilities accommodating sporting events.

Firearms may be kept in vehicles abutting any of these places. They may be carried, openly orconcealed, into any other public location in the state, e.g. malt shops, clothing stores, restaurants, etc.

In one of my very fi rst classes at Vanderbilt Law School in 1965, Professor Paul Hartman asked an open question of us fi rstyear students: “What is the purpose of law?” Several of the unwise quickly raised their hands, each predictably answering with some version of the platitude, “To do justice.”

Hartman ridiculed each of them. Then he taught us one of the most important lessons we, as lawyers, ever learned: “No, you idiots.

Law is for the sole purposeof providing society with a reasonable way to resolve disputes that does not require meeting at high noon on Main Street and fighting it out with six guns.

Justice is abstract, relative ... and secondary.”

Oklahomans took their Second Amendment “bugaboo” and crazed fear of President Obama too far - as in moving society back more than 200 years.

They declared it “open season” for any idiot out there to “get even” in a hurry. And, there are a bunch of such idiots ... even in Arkansas.

DON SWITZER

Rogers

Opinion, Pages 5 on 11/24/2012

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