Schools are not doing enough to protect students
School districts are failing to protect the students. It is that simple. This is not a gun law issue. This is not a mental health issue. The school districts will not do what is necessary to protect the students.
How many mass shootings have we seen in PNC Park or Heinz Field or PPG Paints Arena? How many mass shootings have we seen in courthouses or on airplanes? The answer is zero. If Heinz Field can prevent 60,000 people from entering without a weapon, then schools should be able to stop 500 to 2,500 students from entering without a gun.
Schools need to have fewer points of entry and have trained personnel at each entry site. Perimeters need to be secured and monitored with no one entering the property without being assessed or entering metal detectors. Rather than taking these actions to protect very vulnerable students, they insist on asking for gun law and mental health law changes.
The school districts need to consult with sectors that have been successful at preventing mass shootings among vulnerable customers and actually make efforts to prevent shootings instead of talking about it. SHAWN BALASCHAK
Whitehall agenda. Yet many do not know what the liberal agenda is. They also up until the past election have been deficit hawks, but where is the deficit now?
The evil liberal agenda has done dastardly things like giving people a chance to retire with Social Security. Why don’t these lazy sons of a gun keep working till they die?
Then the liberal agenda thought that since people can retire, why not keep them healthy and give them Medicare. How dare they want to keep people healthy.
Then the top 1 percent of wealth in the country was feeling left out — how sad. So let’s give them some tax breaks to make them feel better. Everyone knows when you give to the rich how it trickles down to the needy. Thankfully, the trickle hasn’t drowned anybody yet.
At least we had the deficit hawks who want a tight budget so we don’t live as a country in debt. Thank goodness we had a president like Bill Clinton, who was the last president who didn’t have a budget deficit. But really, was he much of a liberal? Now thankfully the conservatives have control of all legislative bodies and that will take care of the deficit. Oh wait, it is higher now than under President Barack Obama.
Hmmm, maybe the liberal agenda isn’t so bad, and the conservative agenda isn’t bad if you are wealthy. Anyhow, think about whom you are voting for. Don’t just pick a name because of the party the candidate is in. Think about how elections affect your life.
NICK COXON Baldwin Borough
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and I volunteered for service, then special training and finally Vietnam. In the Central Highlands on a firebase, my training and abilities had a good workout. Later, when Nixon wound down the war, I used computers to support headquarters.
I find my experience contrasts with those who rebelled against family example and struggled with careers to find meaning in the media and their images of self-expression. I remember the TV Westerns “Gunsmoke” and “Have Gun Will Travel” but never thought their heroes were an example of political success. I worked with media experts in campaigning but never lost the central idea that numbers and language had to make sense to be useful and that political discourse engaged in meaning to the benefit of the public.
Yes, I witnessed the McCarthy hearings with my mother, who watched them to divert from routine chores, but I never thought right-wing bluster on TV added much. I chose a career as a caseworker so I could ensure government worked for the people, getting them medical care and food. The job was all I hoped for, with its human contact, numbers work and policy expressions.
Now I witness the futile efforts in politics of media power: Trump blasting on the internet, Trump “a-Twitter” on his hopes, and Trump failing to staff his presidency. My news is that running beauty pageants and borrowing from foreign governments does not make politics go. PHIL KINCADE East Liberty