Ban on military-style weapons a step in the right direction
I read with concern the letter from the Abbotsford resident on the gun issue that has reared its ugly head recently. The writer has requested that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “rescind the gun ban immediately.”
In what country does he live in to suggest that a ban of rapid-fire, “semi-automatic” weapons should be withdrawn. We live in a relatively peaceful country called Canada.
As a retired police officer, I have seen the damage these weapons can do. Collectors can acquire them, but the firing assembly should be disabled before acquisition.
We have recently seen what can happen to citizens when weapons get into the hands of murderous monsters.
Any ban on “operational semi- and/or fully automatic military firearms” should be viewed as a step in the right direction toward a more “peaceful society.”
Mike Runte, Langley
Our children deserve better than ‘virtual graduation’
High school graduation marks a time in every young person’s life when they can look back and celebrate all their hard work in school (well … most everyone, anyway). Endless hours spent during the past five years completing homework, doing projects and getting stressed out preparing for tests — all finally rewarded by the honour of taking part in, what for many will be, one of the greatest moments of their young lives: The high school graduation ceremony.
We all fall back on memories surrounding our grad ceremonies. Mothers sharing precious memories of the time spent with daughters looking for just the right dress, guys trying on suit after suit, and for the first time, seeing the young man they had become looking back in the mirror.
We all recall the excitement of arriving at the ceremony and seeing each other transformed into young princes and princesses, while our parents beamed with pride.
Yet, the graduates of 2020 won’t have any of those memories. The Ministry of Education’s draconian decision to instruct schools to hold virtual high school grad ceremonies in light of COVID-19 means 2020 grads will pay the price of having their memories consist of watching a computer screen and seeing a picture of their classmates in dress/suit with a “one-liner’ caption below.
These kids deserve a heck of a lot better than that, and the ministry knows it. The grads are getting a raw deal, and it sucks.
Nobody is dismissing the potential dangers of spreading COVID-19, but the lame decision by the Ministry of Education amounts to a cop-out. We have countless, highly intelligent school administrators and teachers working in our high schools who instruct and encourage our children every day to come up with creative solutions to solving problems. I’m sure they would have many ideas for putting together grad ceremonies that would be both safe and memorable.
Seating can be arranged for grads to allow for proper social distancing across a huge gym. Grads could enter in smaller groups with staggered ceremony times. The ceremony itself can be streamed online for parents to see or how about holding the ceremonies outdoors in one of our beautiful local parks or gardens (even the school’s playing field) with school officials monitoring social distancing?
Giving up on all efforts to find viable solutions to honour these young people for all of their sacrifices and hard work is a shameful bureaucratic cop-out and only serves to teach these new grads their first big lesson in life: Sometimes there is no happy ending.