LETTERS

LITTLE ROCK — Use sense to solve it

Before discussing our latest massacre any further, we need to look around and do some math. In our country, one person goes berserk and kills two dozen people. In other parts of the world, whole segments wreak havoc continuously. They have different names-militias, warlords, even their own governments-but the conclusion is the same. Unless human nature changes, we’ve got it as good as it gets.

This doesn’t mean we should ignore the problem-just use common sense and self-respect while solving it. We could start with three questions: Why do schools get shot up more often than police stations? If you had a disturbed son, would you keep guns in the house and encourage him to shoot them? Who is more qualified to address threats in your neighborhood, you or a politician in Washington, D.C.?

CARI KING

Pocahontas

Shows rank hypocrisy

Barack Obama’s shedding of tears and emotional words on national television regarding the recent school shootings were right and proper. What makes his remarks seem so hollow is the fact that he supports the abortion laws of this country that result in the killing of tens of thousands of children each year.

That he would so severely condemn one and ignore the other, I believe, screams of rank hypocrisy.

TOMMY WILLIAMS

Gentry

Our society is violent

Thomas Booth is right on regarding the real problem behind mass killings. It’s the person behind the weapon, not the weapon. Remember Timothy McVeigh? He made a bomb. Didn’t need a gun.

We now live in a violent society, a result of video games, music, movies, drugs, you name it. Don’t blame the NRA. Be realistic. They are not to blame for upholding our rights.

The gun-haters and politicians say what the public wants to hear-that they can fix it: Just pass a law banning the sale of assault weapons and clips that hold numerous rounds plus enforce background checks, then the crazies can’t kill anybody.

If that was a viable solution, then we would have won the war on drugs. Instead, they are still pouring into this country by the tons.

Prohibition failed and fueled the black market. The war on drugs has failed.

Law-abiding citizens don’t object to background checks. Outlaws don’t need laws. They simply circumvent them.

JOCEIL WOODS

Searcy

Tragedy not in vain

Re the recent letter sent by Chad Getchell about Sandy Hook: I agree. We must make a change so that these children and their teachers will not have died in vain.

JO ANN HALL

Springdale

Objects not to blame

The worst mass murder on American soil was committed on Sept. 11, 2001, by 19 radicals wielding not guns, but box cutters. Where was the firestorm of comments to take box cutters and passenger jets off the market due to the risk they posed for accomplishing and repeating that gruesome tragedy?

There was no outrage against box cutters or jets because sensible people knew it wasn’t the objects which were responsible-it was the hands of the radical idealogues who carried them on the planes with their murderous intent.

If an individual has the rage or evil in his/her heart required to commit murder, he/she will find a weapon of opportunity. Cain killed Abel and we can be certain that a gun was not used.

If more gun control is enacted, then we must act to control the sale of all blunt objects, golf clubs, hammers, knives, candlesticks, box cutters, flammable liquids, automobiles, and the list goes on.

No, what should be controlled is what we allow in our homes and who we allow in our hearts-only then will the violence come under control.

JERRY MANNING

Maumelle

Unacceptable statistic

Recent reports have suggested that civil war in Syria had claimed 40,000 lives in less than two years. Our U.S. president recently said we would hold the Syrian government accountable if it now used chemical weapons to kill fellow Syrians.

We seem to be a nation morbidly obsessed with form over substance. Consider U.S. government statistics indicating that we meanwhile allowed the killing of 50,000 fellow Americans a year, among them mere infant children, as a result of our having tolerated their exposure to the hazardous chemicals of secondhand tobacco smoke. How many are acceptable, another 1 million innocent Americans dead?

Thomas Jefferson suggested that only well-informed people could be trusted to govern themselves. No truly well-informed people would dispute the reasonableness of these latter mortality estimates based upon figures made available by public health officials to whom major U.S. tobacco companies also now urge you be guided.

Ironically, also in the name of capitalism, we uneconomically embrace the philosophy of Soviet communist dictator Joseph Stalin, who said the death of one individual is a tragedy, but the death of 1 million individuals is a mere statistic.

DAN J. HAWKINS

Harrison

Teams deserve better

I watched three bowl games on New Year’s Day. I have no dog in these hunts, but I must comment on the officiating.

Never have I seen such inexcusable examples of officiating. It is time for the team coaches to publicly tell it like it is and even accept the wrath and fines from the NCAA. The teams’ players deserve better. The fans deserve better.

The NCAA should be ashamed of the officiating, issue a public apology in a televised news conference, and either resign and/or fix the problem.

I do not know the answer on how to fix the officiating but I do know that literally millions of dollars ride on a fair athletic contest. Kids playing their hearts out deserve better, as do coaches and fans.

LANE CARTER

Edgemont

Funds could be saved

I have been thinking about previous ice storms in the past 10 years compared with how devastating this latest storm appeared to be; so many people affected.

I cannot help but wonder if some of the devastation could have been prevented by more diligence paid to cutting back trees/branches. Now, we (the city/consumers) are faced with a huge bill in response.

Thank God for neighboring electric companies pitching in.

Now, we are faced with repairing potholes as a result of the freezing/ wet conditions. I just wonder if any of this past week’s problems and the weeks ahead (repairing the potholes) could have been prevented and money saved.

CATHERINE RAYBURN

Little Rock