Bundling other items with mall fools no one
Undaunted by reality, the Tea Party’s four horsemen (commissioners Jim Sides, Craig Pierce, Mike Caskey and Chad Mitchell) bought an old mall for more than the asking price and took it off the tax rolls, with no plans for its use.
Citizens, understandingly, didn’t take kindly to that notion and placed the current chairman of the county commission (Sides) in fifth place in the primary. Now, one would surmise that the other three commissioners would have caught the whiff in the air that something was “fishy” with their actions.
Apparently not! Soon thereafter, they attempted to finance this folly through the Local Government Commission, as a single issue. At first, they had a public hearing where much of the public wasn’t allowed to speak. Then they scheduled a second hearing and, ‘lo and behold, they pulled their application with the LGC before loads of folks showed up to air their thoughts.
Mr. Pierce now says he’s going to repackage this idea and evidently add to it a few “bones” for the animal shelter, airport and Rowan-Cabarrus Community College and resubmit to the LGC. This certainly reminds me of a movie musical song titled, “A Spoonful of Sugar Makes the Medicine Go Down,” or perhaps more accurately, “A Spoon Full of Sugar Makes the Mall Tax Go Down.”
In essence, this new, slick move ties education to the mall purchase so that the four horsemen of the mallpocalypse can balance the budget and stay out of trouble with the LGC.
This sophomoric move is quite transparent, even to the casual observer. Is this really the quality of leadership Rowan County deserves?
— John T. Blair
Salisbury

Statistic was misleading
The writer is responding to Tuesday’s editorial about the death of Treasure Feamster, “What might have been.”
It’s classic Salisbury Post, using a local tragedy that leads into attacks of the Second Amendment by exploiting distorted facts from an anti-gun organization — Children’s Defense Fund — to bash constitutional rights. It is dishonest in the extreme to lump victims of gun violence as “children 1-19 “ in age.
How about we look at some actual stats.
According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the overwhelming majority of that 1-19 year age figure relate to teen deaths, many of which were likely drug and gang related. In actual “children deaths,” nearly all incidents involve accidental mishaps (often parental neglect). Less than 1 percent of fatal accidents involve firearms and “children.”
“Children” deaths by firearms are dramatically exceeded by motor vehicle crashes, falls, fire, poisoning, drowning, choking and medical care mistakes, just to name a few. But why let a few honest facts get in the way of a good story — hey, Post?
Want some more facts?
• According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, since 1981 crimes have steadily dropped while firearm ownership has increased dramatically.
• In the 20th century, the Soviet Union, Germany, China and Turkey slaughtered 54.5 million of their citizens — unable to defend themselves — after establishing nationwide gun control.
Are you liberal Post editors starting to get the gist of this?
On Wednesday, the Post ran Kathleen Parker’s attack on using a gun to stop bad guys (“Armed, dangerous and dead”). Tragically, an armed citizen was killed trying to save lives. It’s what we do to live with ourselves. God bless him! Maybe he saved a liberal news editor.
Afterthought: Want to help Obama finish his dream to destroy America? Support Kay Hagan so he can keep his Senate!
— Randy Biggerstaff
Kannapolis