This is Viewpoints for Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Question abound on arming teachers

The Laurens County school board is allowing selected staff members to be armed. There are concerns. What is the selection process? What are the rule of engagement? Will teachers be responsible for locking down their classrooms and only authorized to use deadly force if a shooter tries to enter their classrooms? Will teachers be expected to locate an intruder? This could result in teachers engaging in a running gun battle with an intruder. Will teachers be expected to only incapacitate an intruder? Will they be expected to kill an intruder to ensure that he stops shooting at students? How will police determine who is an armed teacher and who is a violent intruder?

It is one thing to shoot at paper targets. It is another to shoot at a human. It is one thing to hit a stationary target. It is another to hit a moving target. I do not know if teachers will continue to shoot until an intruder is dead. I do not know if teachers will engage in a gun battle with an individual who is firing an automatic riffle and moving.

Do school boards expect teachers to be gun fighters? Do parents approve? Counties should harden schools, hire armed resource officers and let teachers teach.

Notice something strange?

A naked white man shoots up a Nashville-area Waffle House and kills four people. That armed man is later apprehended and taken alive. A clearly delusional naked (and unarmed) black man in Atlanta is shot and killed because the policeman felt "threatened." What's wrong with this picture?

Good points made

In a response to my letter “Jackson is wrong for VA,” Dr. Rowland misses the point, which is that the multiple functions performed by the Carl Vinson center could be more efficiently and less expensively offered by separate, purpose-designed facilities.

Dr. Rowland notes that he has “observed” the expansion of the facility in the past thirty years. His view is not from that of the patient, while mine is. The doctor notes that over 200,000 patient visits were recorded in 2017. True. and when added to the patients served by the six Community Based Outreach Clinics, the total jumps to over 378,000. That is impressive by any standard.

The Macon clinic has recently moved to a larger facility offering a broader menu of services. A sorely needed expanded clinic for Perry has been in the works for some time to serve the largest concentration of veterans in the state.

All of which makes my point: Maintaining an eight-decade old building on an outsized campus is not the best way forward. I have received excellent care from the clinics. At the facility in Dublin, not so much. However, I have recently been made aware of the upgrades to equipment and staffing that might mitigate my perceptions. Also, the addition of the new, separate, mental health facility is badly needed after more that 17 years of continuous warfare. So, as Dr. Rowland notes, my information was and is incomplete. During my upcoming visit to the CVMC, I plan on correcting that.

Violence starts with incomplete families

A recent "Your Say" author raised the question, "What can I (as a middle class white guy) do" to help stop the ubiquitous black-on-black violence? For years I wrote and pleaded with Charles Richardson to speak straight to his audience, and even gave him statistics of the evidence that the No. 1 common factor between crime, poverty and poor education is illegitimacy among black youth. He never would come out and say it, but always would skirt the issue in his articles. I even offered him an update to the old poem, "First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the mother with the baby carriage," which highlights the right order in relationships. To the black women in this community, because Charles would never say it, I'll say it: Ladies, that guy at your door is not to be just a sperm donor who runs off after he's had his way. He is to first be a loving husband, then a father, and then he has the privilege to become a dad. Insist on it, and maybe the next generation of black children won't suffer such blight in the crime, poverty and illiteracy departments. Leaders in the black community, who will speak up? The rest of our society is counting on you.

Legalize one, forbid the other

Two of the most destructive elements in America are reversible! The states that have allowed the sale of marijuana are on the right track according to leading physicians. Remember alcohol and cigarettes are drugs, too. Their addictiveness has destroyed and killed more than wars. By substituting marijuana for opioid drugs, death rates drop significantly. Attaining a drug-free America is an improbable dream. Legalizing marijuana ends the criminal aspects that costs America hundreds of billions a year. It is true the criminal incomes will evaporate, but that is definitely a plus for society.

About hearing a congressman say, "For a lobbyists to talk to him, they better be ready to pay." We all have known the corruptible aspect to lobbying. Money, trips and just about anything imaginable is at provided. Having known lobbyists, their stories would shock the hell out of most of you. End lobbyists and save hundreds of billion monthly. It is no wonder so many go to Washington broke and come home rich. Think about past members of Bibb County.

This story was originally published May 1, 2018 at 12:00 AM with the headline "This is Viewpoints for Tuesday, May 1, 2018."