Letters

Adults failing children

On Wednesday, the president advocated arming teachers. Teachers are in schools to teach and students to learn. We already ask teachers to parent our children. Should we be abdicating our responsibility to protect our children too?

Elected officials have a responsibility to protect those who have entrusted us to represent them. We are failing. I don't believe anyone is asking to ban all guns, but we are asking for common-sense solutions to keep our citizens safe.

Our children are speaking very articulately, I might add. We the responsible adults owe it to them to listen. Let us join together to ban assault weapons in the short term and help the mentally ill. Our children are the future--embrace them, listen to them, love them.

SHARON PRIEST

Mabelvale

Hearts are breaking

I am writing this because my heart is aching for the parents and families of all those children and teachers shot to death by that 19-year-old ex-student who was allowed to own a semiautomatic weapon--legally.

I want our congressional leaders to hear this, and writing them doesn't work. Both Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell dismissed the whole thing by saying they need to get all the facts before they can decide what to do.

Here are the facts: Mothers and fathers and other family members had to stand at the school where they thought their child was safe and see him or her lying on the ground full of bullet holes and bleeding--dead--and identify that child who is now gone and who they will never hold again. Maybe then you will start to put yourself in that situation and know what it is like. I cannot imagine it.

All of you in Congress need to represent the people of this country who have had to do that--and it is many, many people, not the gun manufacturers, because that is who the NRA is. Maybe then you will get some backbone and pass a law against anyone but law enforcement owning that type of gun.

Don't talk Second Amendment to me. History tells us the founding fathers who wrote those amendments were talking about a militia, a National Guard-type of arrangement to keep the government from turning into what they had left to come here. You want a handgun, get a permit. You want an assault rifle, join the Army.

FRANCES MORRIS FINLEY

Little Rock

About school security

Seldom is there a sure thing but I believe school security implemented right would stop school shootings. Many other things should also be done for the sake of the community and the families, including the attackers. But gun control should not even be in the discussion because it's not about safety, it's about control and the destruction of the U.S. Constitution.

I believe progressives are not concerned about lives, but the agenda. If they cared about life, they would be against abortion and deaths caused by illegal aliens.

FLOYD HOPSON

Hazen

It has met its match

Dear NRA: How you feeling now? You have met your match. You go, young people from Parkland. Emma Gonzalez speaks a truth you can't even attempt to refute. Emma asks how much the life of a victim is worth. She stated that for Trump, divide $30 million (which he received from the NRA) by the number of gunshot victims. You will then see what they are worth to Trump.

So take note, politicians with NRA funding, you have chosen your friends. We will remember.

L.A. NOLEN

Little Rock

Must tackle this issue

To all Arkansas representatives, including our governor: In light of the most recent school massacre in Florida, we are asking you to give every dollar the NRA has donated to your collective campaigns to the victims and their families.

Yes, we are praying for the children and their heroic teachers who died, and their suffering families; but for our prayers to be answered, we must now face this issue head-on in public debate.

ERIN and RICHARD POWELL

Little Rock

Get involved with kids

I am just as upset about school shootings as everybody else; however, no one wants to admit what the real problem is. I would like to make the following suggestions.

  1. Quit using the school as a babysitting service. See to it that your children get involved in school activities and you become active in the PTA.

  2. Have at least one meal a day when everyone sits at the table and talks to each other.

  3. Limit TV time and monitor games, and eliminate those programs that are violent. If they want to play war, teach them how to play chess or Chinese checkers.

  4. At least once a day, tell your children you love them and give them a hug.

  5. Make it a point to find out what they are doing with their spare time and what they are doing on the computer.

I helped raise a boy and two girls and taught them all how to shoot a gun and made it very clear that they didn't touch a gun without my permission. They all graduated from college and never shot anybody. My son and I hunt together, but my girls are not interested.

I feel that the news is making a big mistake by publishing articles for two and three weeks about shootings, because there is some nutcase out there that feels that this would be a good way to go out in a blaze of glory.

Again, my heart goes out to those families who lost their children, because if it were one of mine, I would find it hard to deal with.

You don't put a Band-Aid on a cancer!

LAWRENCE H. ALLEN

Highland

Preventative actions

In the wake of the tragic Parkland, Fla., school shooting, there is appropriate call for preventive action--gun control and mental health programs.

Gun control? Congress should pass legislation, and the president should sign a law banning automatic and semiautomatic weapons, period. The law should give owners six months to receive $500 for turning in their weapons. Thereafter, possession should invoke a $5,000 fine and six months in jail. Second offense doubles the first, third offense doubles the second, and so on.

As to mental health, I have mainly questions. Universal screening for young men 16 to 25? Who screens? What are the parameters? Who trains the screeners? How often is the screening repeated? Who accumulates the data? Who has access? Is it public information? What are the follow-ons? Who pays for it? How is uniformity of screening and treatment determined and administered? I don't ask these questions in order to inhibit a mental health program, but to understand what can and should be done.

JACK SCHMEDEMAN

Little Rock

Editorial on 02/23/2018

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