12/17 Letters: Shooter drills for toddlers? Say no, and focus on gun control instead.

Gun control

On a recent visit to California I learned that our grandson will be participating in active-shooter drills in 2020. He’s 19 months old. His favorite words are ball and book.

I couldn’t imagine how an active-shooter drill for toddlers would work, so I turned to Google. I was dismayed to find numerous links about active-shooter drills at preschools. One site recommended telling toddlers that animals had escaped from the zoo, and they needed to hide to be safe.

Is this what we want for our children? To teach them to be afraid and ready to scurry into dark corners on command? Shouldn’t we instead be creating safe environments for them so they can learn and flourish?

This month is the seven-year anniversary of Sandy Hook. Rather than becoming numb to continued school shootings and incorporating active-shooter drills into all levels of curriculum, we need to enact better gun control laws. Immediately.

We owe it to our children and our grandchildren.

Karen Lauterbach, Chapel Hill

Silent Sam

N.C. Sons of Confederate Veterans plans to “preserve and display” the Silent Sam statue. This compromise will not satisfy the protesters who see the monument in a way that is not consistent with its intent.

The protesters do not want Silent Sam on campus, yet they don’t want the statue placed anywhere else. If they do not prevail, they’ve shown by past incidents that they’ll resort to mob violence.

Since the memorial was erected by the N.C. chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy to be a “monument to the students and faculty, who went out from its walls in 1861 to fight and die for the South.” it seems appropriate that it be on campus.

While I stand firm in the belief that it belongs on campus and mob violence should not prevail, I can accept the compromise of the SCV to relocate the statute and UNC’s commitment of $2.5 million for this project.

As a Northerner who retired to the South, I see these Confederate monuments as a symbol of U.S. history and nothing more.

Wendy Wiseman Paige, Marble

Rural communities

Regarding “Special Report: NC cities prosper while many rural counties wither,” (Dec. 10):

My recent visit to Beaufort on N.C. 101 told me loud clear that our rural areas are in poor condition, with small houses frequently seen along the road with roofs torn apart.

Not only does North Carolina suffers from the huge divide between its urban and rural areas, but eastern North Carolina along the coast looks vulnerable to climate change, sea level rise and hurricanes like Dorian which did huge damage to Ocracoke Island’s rural communities, which FEMA failed to help.

Let us take appropriate legislative action to help Ocracoke people who are suffering during this Christmas season.

Robert Y. George, Wake Forest

Political donations

The U.S. government has a long record of intervening in elections of other countries. This doesn’t make Trump’s encouragement of foreign intervention in U.S. elections pardonable, but reveals the hypocrisy of many Democrats who’ve continued to squander tax dollars on “forever wars” and covert operations that undercut democracy at home and abroad.

Both parties are dependent on campaign contributions from corporations enriched by these wars.

Politicians such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who have depended on numerous small contributions from individual donors and refused corporate PAC money, have shown more independence.

U.S. politics have a powerful effect all over the world, so why not embrace “foreign intervention” but limit it to small donations from individual donors?

After all the American hubris about bringing democracy to the world it would be an ironic and gracious thing if the citizens of the world brought democracy to us.

Roger Ehrlich, Cary

Sen. Thom Tillis

Since moving to Raleigh in late 2014, I have been called for jury duty three times. If I didn’t show up, I had to provide a written explanation, or a warrant for my arrest could have been issued. When I did show up, I was instructed that as a juror I must determine the case solely based on the evidence admitted at trial and the legal instructions given by the judge.

Imagine if I had stood for jury selection and told the judge “I’m a definite no” before hearing one piece of evidence. At the least I would be recused from that trial; at the worst I would be held in contempt of court.

Yet these are the exact words of Sen. Thom Tillis, who will sit as a juror should President Trump’s impeachment trail reach the Senate.

I have done and will continue to do my civic duty. I can’t say the same for Tillis.

Laurie McDowell, Raleigh