Printed letters, Aug. 19, 2012

By Staff
Monday, August 20, 2012

Theater’s security checks raise questions

In a recent Daily Sentinel article about the searching of bags at the Regal Cinemas, Russ Nunn, a Regal spokesman, was quoted as saying, “Regal takes safety and security very seriously.”

Just exactly how is searching someone after he or she is already in the theater taking security seriously? How thoroughly is the staff searching all bags and purses? Are they trained to identify whatever it is they are looking for? Based on two separate accounts of which I am aware, women’s purses were barely looked into, let alone searched.

This begs the question regarding the policy for those with a lawfully obtained concealed carry permit or off-duty police officers. Will they be denied access to the theater after they’ve paid an admission fee? Will the Regal staff begin doing pat-downs, too? Perhaps they could attend some airport TSA training. Bags aren’t the only places to carry a weapon, firearm or otherwise.

Law-abiding citizens who choose to exercise their rights will be negatively affected by, yet again, another knee-jerk reaction to a tragedy caused by a lunatic. Society talks about the ills of war and how we shouldn’t be involved outside of our own borders, yet we have no problem bringing war and domestic terrorism (or workplace violence, if you use the president’s definition) into our own communities every day. Then we persecute those who take the responsibility of self-defense seriously.

We’ve got a real problem in this country, and putting the unfair, and potentially unsafe, burden on the shoulders of high-school or college-age people checking bags at the movie theater is akin to applying a Band-Aid to an arterial bleed.

I’m reminded of the words of comedy radio persona Earl Pitts when he spouts, “Wake up, America!” But realize that this is no laughing matter.

DEA BRIDGE
Grand Junction

Mass shootings reflect cuts
in mental health counseling

Another shooting and, I’m sure, soon another chorus for gun control.

Gun control is not the problem or solution. The problem comes from the general population, politicians and rabid gun control voices not addressing currently inadequate mental health treatment.

Two of our local hospitals closed their mental health centers, and the regional mental health center is inadequately funded. Look at the common thread in the recent mass shootings. Besides guns being used, the shooters had serious mental health problems.

The Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora and Tucson shooters could have been screened if detected by a functional mental health system. A suggestion to the NRA and pro-gun politicians: Campaign for support and funding for more community mental health programs instead of deflecting blame.

I’m a NRA member, and I would not mind increasing my membership dues if the increase went to this funding.

Maybe it’s time for a new Pittman-Robertson Act for community mental health treatment. If this campaign was successful, the anti-gun advocates could not demonize the pro-gun advocates.

RICK SPALENKA, RN
Cedaredge

 

Romney, Ryan leave left bereft

Romney and Ryan have a conservative vision that is right for the Right but leaves the Left bereft.

R&R will push for defense and weapons, much as North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un does while his countrymen die of hunger.  R&R will push for less spending, but it is not the spending that is bad, it is the misallocation of spending that is wrong.

To stop spending completely or reduce spending too much could have disastrous results.  R&R want to spend less so that the 98 percent will really experience the consequences.  R&R want to “grow the pie” but want the 1 percent to keep 98 percent since they believe they are the deserving class.

They are back to a 70-year-old theory that benefits will trickle down because lower classes are less deserving.  R&R will not accept trickle-up, and yet we know that members of the middle class have to spend a very large portion of what they receive and the lower classes have to spend every penny they receive.  The rich, on the other hand, will in most cases outsource their money to tax safe havens in order to pay fewer taxes than anyone else.

Romney will continue to claim he pays all his required taxes but refuse to let others know how little he pays.  In step with economist Ayn Rand, Ryan believes that the lower economic classes must suffer in order to really learn our lesson to make the world better for the 1 percent.

It appears no one has told R&R that it wasn’t Main Street nor the lower classes that created the economic downturn in 2008 — it was Wall Street.  Now R&R want to deregulate the Wall Street sector.

For me, it was distressful information that Romney selected Ryan.  For the middle and lower classes, it’s bad news they are running at all.

JOSE U. LUCERO
Grand Junction