Readers join in weapons debate
Consensus of opinions: We can discuss issue in respectful manner.
As
expected, and welcomed, many readers weighed in on my column about the Connecticut shootings. Thanks.
The responses showed we can have a respectful discussion about this difficult problem.
I heard only two ridiculously unreasonable suggestions. The first: “Please crawl back in your hole, sleazebag.” The second: “How about running for Prez?” I won’t do the first, and, because 2016 is a long way off, it’s too soon for a decision on the second.
Mostly I heard frustration and acknowledgement that the problem is a multifaceted one that defies simple legislative solution. Many also understand the challenge in keeping guns away from people who shouldn’t have them while not violating the rights of people entitled to bear arms.
Several readers reminded me of the legal uses of legal weapons.
“.410s are great for shooting in the air and scaring off coyotes attacking your pets,” Missy Bledsoe told me, wondering whether making mental health care “cheaper, less stigmatized, (more) easily accessible … would have prevented” what happened last week.
Mike Murphy “grew up around guns” but now uses them only “when something needs to die,” like the 323 feral pigs he’s killed on his ranch since 2000. Though clearly not anti-gun, Murphy said, “It’s clear we somehow need to do things differently in certain respects” concerning firearms.
Some folks, responding to my support for further restrictions on rapid-fire, highcapacity weapons, offered important counsel against moving too quickly on gun control.
“My question to you and most of the media is why is the only immediate response by you to tighten gun control?” wrote Doug Carroll, who owns no guns. “I’m OK with it,” he added, “but what I don’t hear you and the rest of the media addressing is the incredible increase in violent film and video games over the past 30 years.”
Good point. Here’s another one: Just as the overwhelming portion of gun owners never do anything illegal with their
By Nicole Villalpando
Earlier this month, the Boys & Girls Club of the Austin Area sat down with Juana Rosas’ five children and asked them want they wanted for Christmas and what they wanted to give their mother.
A typical Christmas would be a few packages of clothes and a meal shared together.
This year will be different. The Rosas family is part of the Austin American-Statesman’s Season for Caring. The holiday program features the needs of 12 families and helps hundreds of others all year long through local nonprofit agencies.
The children, ages 5 to 12, made their list, but it wasn’t easy. They didn’t know what toys to ask for because they didn’t have any toys in their
SFor more information on Season for Caring, call 4453590 or email community@ statesman.com. To make a donation, go online or see the donation form on one-bedroom apartment. When it came to their mom, they knew right away: They wanted to give her a day of relaxation, a day of being pampered.
Rosas, 40, works at a laundry facility, cleaning it three times a day, and takes any odd job she can, from baby-sitting to housecleaning.
“The only time I get to rest is when I sleep,” Rosas said on Wednesday through a translator. That was the day her children, with the help of Boys & Girls Club and the Day Spa & Salon at Barton Creek Square, delivered her Christmas present.
Told that there was a reporter who wanted to interview her, Rosas and her children were driven to Barton Creek Square. When they arrived at the spa, Brian Beaulieu, the nonprofit agency’s director of operations, revealed the real reason they were there. “We think you’re pretty amazing,” he told her.
Rosas started crying and hugged her children in disbelief. “I’m happy,” Rosas said. “This is a big surprise.”
Spa owner Theressa Nguyen whisked away Rosas and her older daughter, Maria, to have manicures and pedicures and for Rosas to get a facial.