LETTERS

— It’s not media’s fault

In an impassioned diatribe against the “media circus” following the Columbine, Sandy Hook and other similarly tragic shootings, a letter writer accused the media of being centered on the crazed killers rather than on the victims to the extent that the former are made more memorable than the latter.

It is unfortunate, ironic and inevitable that killers and victims are linked by these occurrences, but I believe that his statement that he can name many of the gunmen but not their victims says more about him than it does about the media. All victims’ names and much other information about them have been made available. There has been no lack of due publicity and memorials to them.

Is it a moral failure for the media to discuss the killers and any factors which play a part in their murderous pursuits? Don’t we need to know as much as possible about why some individuals become so violent and how they may be identified and these events prevented?

Unless we learn from these incidents and devise better means of preventing them, they will continue to occur. We need to remember the victims appropriately, but not try to affix blame on the media for enlightening us about the killers.

DENNIS A. BERRY

Bryant

Thought is frightening

With the horrific event recently in Sandy Hook, there are loud and persistent calls for the banning of assault weapons. In a recent letter, Ann Link said that no one needs an assault weapon. Personally, I agree. My problem comes with the question “Who decides what we need?” Do you need that 52-inch flat-screen TV? Does everyone of legal driving age in your family need their own automobile?

I realize that comparing the right to own an assault weapon to the right to own a flat-screen TV is comparing apples and oranges. But the thought of government deciding what I need and, more importantly, what I don’t need, scares me. I sincerely hope it scares you, too.

MICHAEL BERGER

Benton

Must feel like citizens

Re Ann Link’s recent letter: Men do not need guns to feel more like a man. I and many Americans need guns to feel like citizens, not subjects. The Second Amendment is one of 10 amendments that make up the Bill of Rights (not needs) to the U.S. Constitution, and is the linchpin to protect the other nine, one of which Link is exercising, as am I. When only the military or “safety services,” as Link put it, have “assault rifles,” then we’ll no longer be citizens.

Because someone has a 20- or 30-round clip for his rifle doesn’t mean he plans on committing mass murder. Newtown, Conn., was a tragedy, but how many children, husbands and wives are killed in automobile accidents each year? I don’t hear anyone calling for abolishing vehicles from our roads.

There is no addiction to guns, just a commitment to protect the Constitution to allow everyone, even Link, to sleep peacefully at night.

RUSS WHALEY

Jacksonville

Scrap violent culture

This last, most tragic mass shooting has brought to the forefront what I believe is the single most important issue threatening our country today: the permeating culture of violence. The U.S. came about through war and has engaged in one war after another since. In recent decades, we appear to have taken it upon ourselves to become the policemen of the world, engaging in violence on behalf of other countries, too. If we are to survive, we must overcome the violence.

We must make it illegal to manufacture, buy, sell or possess automatic or semiautomatic weapons, excluding military and police. As for the statement that if you make guns illegal, only criminals will have them, lately it’s young people, often with no criminal backgrounds, who are the killers.

We must instill the values that preclude accepting violence as a way of life through expanding the impact of schools. We shouldn’t consider arming school personnel, as some have proposed. Adding violence to an already violent situation is a sure prescription for even greater tragedy.Who among our teachers would want to be faced with shooting one of their students?

The violence that has filled the void in young lives gets handed down from one generation to the next. The people who caused the problem through inaction and ineffectiveness have proven to be unable to solve it, so the government must step in. We need to take action now while we still have a country to salvage.

KATHI PURNELL

Horseshoe Bend

We are indeed united

Loy Mauch’s views on the joys of slavery are well-known, and his views on secession are equally supportable. Decisions by the Supreme Court (including by John Marshall) have made the illegality of secession clear, usually based upon the acceptance of the states into a federal republic with the Constitution, a document that Mauch seems to read only parts of.

Claptrap about unbridled state sovereignty was what encouraged South Carolina and others to start the Civil War after they didn’t like the results of the 1860 election. As Andrew Jackson said: “each State having expressly parted with so many powers as to constitute jointly with the other States a single nation, cannot from that period possess any right to secede, because such secession does not break a league, but destroys the unity of a nation, and any injury to that unity is not only a breach which would result from the contravention of a compact, but it is an offense against the whole Union. To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union, is to say that the United States are not a nation.”

We are.

ANGELO TURTURRO

North Little Rock

Shouldn’t have been

Two firemen were killed in a New York ambush by a man who had served 17 years in prison for beating his grandmother to death with a hammer. Question: How did this man ever get out of prison? He should never have seen the light of day again!

JAMES W. CARR

Searcy

Editorial, Pages 11 on 01/07/2013

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