Could well-trained volunteers help protect our schools?

The Sandy Hook massacre was a horrible event; however, no laws or policies will prevent deranged people from running amok. The AP reported this week that someone put gas in a garden sprayer and set five people on fire. This sort of behavior is nothing new. You can Google “running amok” and read about this on “Wikipedia.”

After thinking for a few days, here is my “crack-pot” idea. To my knowledge, no elementary and few middle schools in Rowan have school resource officers. My understanding is that this is due to the expense. Why don’t we ask teachers and administrators, particularly those with military or firearms backgrounds, to volunteer to help? We could pay them to take basic law enforcement training at RCCC this summer, pay for the classes and upon successful completion, swear them in as reserve deputies. We could then spread them out in the school system and put a gun lock box in their classrooms like they use at the jail. Maybe we could compensate them with some stipend money each summer for retraining.

This would bring maximum coverage at a minimum cost, and they would be as well trained as any new deputy; the basic law-enforcement training and state standards would weed out those not suited for such a position. These folks might even find some extra duty in the summer working security, which would help their families financially.

One such trained, dedicated professional person at each school could quickly engage and kill or at least “pin down” a dangerous nut case until reinforcements arrive. Proper training to LEO standards and making them a sworn law enforcement officer would seem to overcome most logical objections to the idea.

— Todd Paris
Salisbury
Tragedy in Newtown

What a sad sad day. Unfortunately, this will not be the last one, as buying a gun in this country is as easy as buying a Slurpee.

— Daniele Prevost Pribble
Spencer

Tax the rich and tax the poor

Taxing the rich is nothing more than a slight-of-hand that will accomplish two things: It will tax the lower and middle class and throw the economy into recession. Anyone that thinks differently is ignorant to the nature of the American economy.

You see, Mr. Rich’s life is different than yours or mine: When someone hands him a bill, tax or otherwise, he calls it an expense and hands it to his accountant. The accountant takes the expense and marks up the selling price of whatever product it is that Mr. Rich produces. Who pays the price difference? The customers — and that role is played by you and me. Of course, the economy being what it is, many of us can’t afford a price increase. No problem: Mr. Rich will lay off a few employees and ship jobs overseas to get the price back down.

So, hypothetically, what would happen if we sent the rich a tax increase for Christmas? According to the accountants at Ernst and Young, we (the lower and middle class) will lose around 2 percent of every dollar we make in real income … except the 700,000 of us that will lose our jobs completely.

It is not my intention here to defame nor defend the wealthy; I might be forced to make many of the same decisions if I were in their shoes. But anyone who is delusional enough to believe they’re doing the rest of us a favor by supporting a tax increase in this economy ought to think twice about their definition of favor.

— John Goforth
Kannapolis
Skinning the working class

Politicians, what are you doing? You are saying that the wealthy should not have to pay more, and the rest of us have to put more “skin” in the game, even those who don’t have enough to live on. You seem to forget that working-class people have the most invested in the game. They are the ones holding the trillions of dollars in debt you borrowed from the likes of Social Security and Medicare. The wealthy have provided, at most, 2 percent in the till of that money. You want the poor and middle class to pay for the money you borrowed from them. That is a scam worth time in jail.

These people, whom you want to pay more, are also the ones you seem to think are lazy welfare bums who don’t want jobs. They do want jobs. Where are the jobs all your wealthy friends were to provide for these people? Not the ones outsourced to pay cheap labor and to avoid taxes here. As for being lazy, many of these poor people work two jobs to make ends meet, while the House of Representatives, with salaries of $176,000, has scheduled a 129-day work calendar for the year. That is less than a half-time job for all your pay, health care, travel and other perks.

Maybe it is time for the president to hit the executive order button and order pay per days worked with FICA insurance and health benefits deducted from your pay. Then maybe the wealthy will find good paying jobs for all of you, as the Koch brothers did for Jim DeMint.

Politicians. Bless their hearts — or pointy heads.

— Donald C. Tracy
Salisbury
Delivering a good deed

I went to Magic Mart to purchase a new computer desk, but when we got outside to load it in my car, the box was too big to fit.

A lady who saw us struggling to make it fit offered to help us out by putting it in the back of her pickup truck to help us get it home. When I told her we lived off Main Street in Salisbury, she told us to lead the way and followed us to our residence..

After we unloaded our computer desk, I asked her name. Se told me she was Vickie Williams, a teacher at West Rowan Middle School.

I just want to let everyone know this lady has a kind heart, and I really appreciate the good deed she did in helping us out.

God bless you and thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

— Libbyand Andrea Brown
Salisbury