TOPIC LABEL
Response to "Guns easy target, but lax morality, parenting at fault" Opinion, Dec. 16
Rachel Alexander’s shallow assessment of the Newtown tragedy included this gem: that “parents are no longer taking their children to church, where they would learn stability and morals.” Apparently, she values one hour in church per week over the place where limitless hours of ethical instruction, both in word and deed, can be taught: a child’s home.
Without parents setting the example, the hour in church is a waste. More often than not, mass killers were brought up in one religious tradition or another. Adam Lanza and his mother attended a church in Newtown. Platitudes are no substitute for the hard thinking that must be done to try and comprehend the reasons such evil seems particularly to be a feature of American society.
FRANK BRENNAN, ACWORTH
SCHOOL SHOOTINGS
Mental health services
could prevent tragedy
Like everyone, I am horrified at the mass shootings that seem to have almost become the norm in our country. We talk of gun control. I believe that we need stricter laws about purchasing handguns, automatic rifles and large capacity clips.
But why are we not more concerned about what I believe is at the base of this issue? Funding for mental health programs are cut; mental health facilities are forced to close due to lack of funding, and people with mental illness are thrown into jails, instead of hospitals and clinics. Isn’t this at the root of the problem?
Insurance companies that do not cover mental health treatment or charge ridiculously high rates for mental health medication – don’t these factors exacerbate the problem? The stigma around mental illness has not decreased. We need programs to educate the public about mental illness.
When people look away from mental illness, or don’t know what to do when they encounter it, the results can be horribly tragic. Maybe if we knew how to help people get treatment, or to go where they could get treatment, the shooters would be getting help — instead of guns.
CINDY COHEN, MARIETTA
Government should
treat guns like alcohol
The NRA professes that guns do not kill — people do. In the same way, alcohol does not kill — people do. Why do we support laws that control the use of alcohol, but not the use of guns?
The government controls the use of alcohol by limiting the age when it may be purchased, and prohibiting the use of alcohol before driving. Why can’t it control the use of guns by creating stricter laws governing what types of guns may be purchased? We all have the right to feel safe and that our children are protected.
LAURETTE LANDRY, POWDER SPRINGS
Cartoonist used deaths
to push political agenda
I noted with sadness, but not surprise, your editorial cartoons of Dec. 18 (Opinion).
Mike Luckovich used these children’s horrifying deaths to push his political agenda in an utterly tasteless way, while Michael Ramirez expressed the genuine sorrow all decent people feel. Nothing illustrates the utter moral bankruptcy of the left better than this juxtaposition.
JACK FELDMAN, ATLANTA
GOVERNMENT
Consider term limits
to fix political system
Our government no longer works because elected officials are paralyzed by the fear of losing the next election.
The president spends his first four years in office worrying about the next four. Senators and representatives live from one election to the next. The solution: one six-year term for all of them. If there were never going to be another election to worry about, maybe they could get something done. Now, there’s change we can live with.
JIM MILLER, HOSCHTON
