Arming teachers is a 'cruel, absurd' demand
While I applaud President Donald Trump for convening a listening group on gun violence, I am appalled that he would suggest that having “gun-adept, highly trained teachers” in every school is the answer to stopping school shootings. Think about that. Really think about it.
Training for active-shooter situations is not just a matter of going out to a shooting range and popping off a few rounds at a paper target. It requires special facilities and special instructors. It requires regular practice and recertification. Those things are expensive, both in terms of time and money.
Handguns and bullets are expensive, too. The federal government has already cut funds for school security, so who's going to pay for all that?
More importantly, how dare anyone demand a teacher pick up a gun and shoot to kill? A teacher isn't a soldier or a cop or a member of the SWAT team. A teacher is an educator, a mentor, a nurturer of young minds. Both professions are vital in our society, but it's cruel and absurd to think they can or should be undertaken by the same person.
Candace Schuler
Fort Wayne
Lawmakers again punt on serious issue
Googling “punt gun,” Ilearned it is typically a large, smooth-bore, gun with between a 1- and 2-inch bore,and with perhaps a 10-foot-long barrel, mounted in the bow of a punt (a small, low-lying rowboat) and usedparticularly by market gunners to shoot waterfowl by the flock. This practice is illegal in the civilized world.
A similar description seems appropriate fora recentnews item: Automatic gun, typically made for rapid fire of bulletsusing special ammunition. Used particularly by the military for inflicting indiscriminate and heavy casualties; andmore recently by gun enthusiasts and their protagonists extolling their rights under the Second Amendment, resultingin carnage in schools, places of worship and other peaceful public gatherings.
The comparison raises many questions: Are humans less worthy of preservation than waterfowl flocks?Did the punt-gun lovers not pay their National Rifle Association dues? Is our country“uncivilized”?
What would it take to become civilized – perhaps an amendment repealing the Second Amendment just asthe18th was repealed by the21st? Why is Congress always punt-ing these questions?
Kamala S. Krishnan
Fort Wayne
Firearms essential to fight off oppression
In response to Emily Hollenberg (“Time to turn out NRA-bought politicians,” Feb. 25) and Greg Slyford (“Sickening massacre should spur action,” Feb. 25).
First, where is Hollenberggetting her stats on 1,606 mass shootings (and please define a mass shooting)? I'm guessing it is not the same as the school shootings she mentions and probably includes gun violence in Chicago, Baltimore and other big cities. She also mentions that only assault weapons can be involved in mass killings, which is not true. Trucks and cars and knives and bombs have all recently been involved in mass killings. The biggest reason why was because terrorists didn't
