LETTERS: Gun violence; immorality and arming teachers

Into the sewer of immorality

Here we go again. Every time there is an incident involving guns, like the horrible shootings in Connecticut, the liberals attack the NRA and other gun organizations as if guns have anything to do with it.

One group that will be supporting “gun control” will be criminals. If the honest and law-abiding citizens, who are gun owners, can be curtailed, criminals will be free to commit crimes. They will laugh at the law.

As our country sinks deeper into the sewer of immorality, we will see more violence. As the attack on Christians and Christian values continues as well as the elimination of any mention of God in the public square, we wonder “where God is” when a disaster occurs. As the populace continues to be brainwashed with the idea that human beings are “accidents of nature,” as kids play violent and bloody video games, as family values continue to take a hit and as drugs become more and more accessible, we can expect incidents like Sandy Hook to continue to occur.

Rapes, sexual assaults on children, thefts, murders, infidelity, perversions, arsons, ad nauseam, find their way into newspaper headlines daily — but please, don’t put up the Ten Commandments anywhere...someone may be “offended!”

Jim Hurd, Colorado Springs

A good guy with a gun

I agree with Wayne LaPierre of the NRA that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. However, I don’t think a new program from Washington for more police is the right idea. Instead, I like the idea of having trained school teachers and staff with concealed carry permits, as is being done in Wichita Falls, Texas. This is similar to what the New Life Church has done, and the policy saved many lives in 2007. Back then, an armed parishioner who was a volunteer security guard used her gun to stop a heavily-armed bad guy who had already killed several people. What works for a private place of worship will work just as well at a public school.

Naturally, LaPierre’s comments were interrupted by the usual shrill shriekers who claimed that the NRA has blood on its hands because of the Newtown shooting. These people apparently think that banning guns with the magic wand of legislation will make the public safer. I suppose they also believe that banning drugs prevents anyone from getting high. It’s the gun banners who have blood on their hands — people who have figuratively painted targets on public schools with a bull’s-eye that reads “gun-free zone”.

Instead of trying to wish guns out of existence, we need to face reality and protect our children. Arm the teachers to save lives.

Richard H. Timberlake, III, Colorado Springs

America’s new ‘volunteer army’

I read with interest the comments regarding school violence and proposing as solution to arm teachers to protect our children. Not a bad solution, but has anyone asked the teachers what they think about this solution? Or are we just assuming they all want to become America’s new cops? I think it is only fair that to entice teachers to become armed officers, and accept putting themselves in the line of fire, risking their lives to defend this nation’s children and our security, we offer them:

1) Double their salary to compensate for law enforcement duties on top of teaching

2) Give all new teachers a hiring bonus as we do with our fine soldiers

3) Create a teachers’ equivalent to a GI Bill to increase their benefits as well as to give their spouses hiring preferences and benefits as we do with our military and

4) Expand the Tricare system of health care to the teaching profession.

As America’s new “volunteer army”, teachers should receive all the same benefits our fine men and women in uniform do. That is the least we can do for a profession which has been abused, neglected and not compensated enough for so many years. If teachers agree to take up law enforcement duties and serve as our newest brand of security protectors, let’s compensate them sufficiently for risking their lives and possibly paying the ultimate sacrifice defending our nation’s children, values and freedoms.

Carlos Deaguilar, Colorado Springs

Schools are vulnerable targets

After reading comments about how to make schools safer, I would like to offer a suggestion. The NRA recommends putting armed police in every school. This is not only terribly expensive but means only one person in the school is armed and is easily the first target for a deranged shooter.

I suggest arming school teachers and administrators on a voluntary basis. Not every teacher would feel comfortable being armed and not every teacher needs to be armed. Those teachers who volunteered could be trained and periodically re-trained to handle the weapon safely.

I would place signs on the doors of the school that said, “Teachers in this school are armed and trained to protect students with deadly force.” A person who came to the school to cause harm would not know how many teachers were armed or who they were and that would be a definite deterrent. In the Sandy Hook school, wouldn’t it have been better for the principal to have had a weapon in her hand? She was a very brave woman, one who might have volunteered to carry a weapon. As it was, she rushed toward the killer and was only a sacrifice to delay the awful carnage that followed.

Sometimes we must fight fire with fire. Gun controls will not solve the problem as long as killers know that schools are vulnerable targets. Gun-free zones are a joke. Make it too risky to attack a school and I believe school safety will increase.

Terry Stokka, Colorado Springs

Act against gun violence

In memory of the beautiful children and the six heroic adults who were savagely attacked in Newtown, Conn. I am asking our politicians to have the fortitude and courage to curb gun violence.

It is distubing to know that the NRA lobby has so much control over the federal government. The Democrats want to maintain control of the U.S. Senate in 2014 so they are defending states that have been against gun legislation. The NRA’s board, consistng of conservatives from all walks of life, have sold their movement to the gun lobbyists.

President Obama, enforce the existing gun laws now, lead the nation by action and listen to voters and not gun lobbyists. Acting against gun violence must be a priority.

Susan Flesch, Monument