CLIMATE CHANGE
Heat wave prompts
erroneous conclusions
Regarding “2012 U. S. hottest year on record” (News, Jan. 9), Justin Gillis is trying to stir up action to stop global warming by reducing fossil fuel use.
The record spans 1895 to the present. There is much data showing warmer temperatures thousands of years in the past, when human activity was insignificant. The writer claims the warming caused the 2012 drought that “killed crops and sent prices spiraling.” Prices were spiraling before the drought due to the demand that a percentage of our corn crop must be used to make ethanol to fuel automobiles.
Futile attempts at climate mitigation cause more damage than if nothing was done.
JAMES RUST, ATLANTA
GUN CONTROL
Proposed laws would
only make some rich
Vice President Joe Biden promises change to our gun laws. Whether you are for this or against it, you can be sure of two things. First, it will cost you more to own a gun, as this change will mean a new tax or fee or higher insurance costs. Second, someone will become wealthy after the new laws pass.
Will the new gun laws save our children from another evil event? Not likely, but you can bet the laws will make a few insiders rich. Who do you think will profit this time?
LYNN EVERITT, BRASELTON
STUDENT SAFETY
Restrict assault rifles,
don’t arm educators
Arming school personnel seems a bit much, in light of the danger that it imposes. A handgun is no match for an assault rifle. Assault rifles are made with the function to kill as many people as possible, in as little time as possible.
Making school personnel responsible for the safety of pupils and teachers in a school is absurd. When the police arrive at the scene of a disaster, hopefully they’ll be able to tell the good guys from the bad guys. Let’s get rid of the assault rifles, and ensure that only the armed forces and the police possess them.
DAVID CLARKE, BUFORD
POLITICS
GOP actions invite
charge of extremism
I take very strong exception to the accusation that Jay Bookman is engaging in “inflammatory characterizations” of Republican Party officials or seeking to “incite emotionalism” (“Problem isn’t GOP, it’s Obama’s policies,” Readers write, Opinion, Jan. 9).
There is no need to resort to sensationalism — for Bookman or anyone else — in depicting today’s GOP as extremists and radicals. One simply has to report what their “leaders” have actually said and done. From demanding that pregnant women undergo intrusive ultrasound before they can have an abortion, to holding the nation’s full faith and credit hostage to their agenda, to talking about seceding from the Union and “Second Amendment solutions” to policies and politicians they loathe, the GOP’s governors, legislators and other elected officials are behaving like radicals and extremists. Bookman is to be praised for having the courage to call a spade a spade.
MATT G. LEGER, ATLANTA
