Page 4 - December 26, 2012
~m
From
Our
Files
Looking back on more than 80 years of
coverage & east L&n County...
County Chamber of Commerce for
1963 at a meeting last Monday af-
ternoon.
" Gerry Sevems was elected pres-
ident of the Sweet Home-East Linn
December 30, 1987
Sweet Home police have re-
leased a composite of the man be-
lieved to be involved in the Dec. 15
kidnapping.
The victim was allegedly ab-
ducted early Tuesday morning. The
suspect forced the victim to drive to
the Medford area, where he got out
of the car. The victim then returned
to the Sweet Home area and notified
police.
December 27, 1962
The building which will house
the Sweet Home Branch of Bank of
Lebanon is nearing completion.
The building is scheduled to be
c0mpletedJan. 4. 1987 advances made by the
Sweet Home Chamber of Commerce
A vehicle was discovered in the
were numerous and covered a mul-
South Santiam River near here last
titude of areas. Less than two years
Sunday.
The man whom the vehicle ago the Chamber had 85 members.
Now it is approaching 200 members.
belonged to has not been seen since
It is expected to top that number in
Dec. 14. The car was spotted in four
1988.
feet of swift water at the foot of Clark
Mill road, near the Sweet Home Sand Three brothers, seeking an out-
and Gravel company pit. ing in the snow, ended up plunging
down a 125-foot embankment Sun-
day, on Canyon Creek, killing two
and seriously injuring the other.
To borrow that
usually empty
catchphrase, do it
for the children
In the wake of the horrific
Sandy Hook Elementary School
shooting, pundits and politicians
are composing a shrill cacophony
that has the fight wing, the NRA
and many others talking about
trained security officers in every
school and blaming video games
for violence. It has the lefties giddy
with the chance to ban something.
And their prescriptions are not
mutually exclusive. Pretty much
everything folks are saying could
be implemented. If any of them
get their way, we're likely to lose
yet more of our civil liberties and
throw away cash for little real
gain all in the name of a crisis that
Over The
Edge
Sean C. Morgan
Staff Writer
doesn't really exist.
Right now we need to listen
to H.L. Mencken: "The whole
aim of practical politics is to keep
the populace alarmed (and hence
clamorous to be led to safety)
by menacing it with an endless
series of hobgoblins, all of them
imaginary."
Words can't describe the evil
murders of small children at sandy
Hook. Only the sickest waste of
A locally owned newspaper founded Sept. 27, 1929
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www.sweethomenews.com
Office: 1313 MainSt., Sweet Home, Oregon
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human skin and breath wouldn't ago.
be utterly repulsed bywhat At best, the NRA is talking
happened, about spending billions to save
But it represents no crisis. 30 to 130 lives per year. If it COSTS
Our nation has been headed $5 billion to put a security officer
the right direction with crime rates in each school and it saves every
in general since the early 1990s. life in a bad year, we've spent
Crime rates are down. They keep $38.5 million to save a single life.
going down. What we've been Chances of a single security guard
doing is working. This is a fact. stopping every incident are low.
The number of victims of mass Most schools have a lot of doors,
shootings has ranged from about and the bad guy will always have
30 to 130 in the past 30 years, surprise on his side and a good
While 2012 will be on the higher chance to get the drop on a guard.
end of that scale, there is no trend That price tag ranges much
upward, higher in a good year, in which
"There is no pattern. There is 30 lives are saved, but some will
no increase," said criminologist say that no price is too high to
James Allen Fox of Boston's save a life. But if that were true,
University in an Associated Press we could reasonably accept the
story. He has been studying the costs of never driving and parking
subject since the 1980s, spurred every car in the nation to save
by a rash of mass shootings in post more than 30,000 lives per year,
offices. The shootings that get the including children and adults. We
most media attention are rarest, could accept the price of placing a
"Without minimizing the pain security officer on every bridge to
and suffering of the hundreds...who prohibit rocks from being dropped
have been victimized in senseless on passing cars. We would accept
attacks, the facts say clearly that the cost in liberty and remove
[there] has been no increase in backyard pools, which cost some
mass killings." Fox wrote. When 4.000 lives per year.
clusters of incidents occur close The idea of spending more and
together, he added, that likely morecashandlibertyonoursecurity
reflects a mixture of copycatting has given us the Transportation
and coincidence. Services Administration and the
The chance of being shot in one Patriot Act.
of these incredibly rare incidents A new ban on so-called"assault
has decreased substantially. The guns" is the silliest idea of them all.
U.S. population is now 311million. Security guards would no doubt
It was around 225 million 30 years make some kind of difference.
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been exhausted in previous letters will be edited accordingly.
A ban will accomplish nothing,
not to mention the inherent rights
violation in such a ban.
The - Columbine- sfiooting
occurred on April 20, 1999, smack
in the middle of the ban on assault
weapons that ran from 1993 to
2004.
It seems absurd to even have
to mention a possible gun ban, but
our ridiculous politician class can't
help itself when it sees an excuse
to curb citizens' liberties.
All that said, we certainly have
a problem when 30 to 130 people
per year (out of 311 million today)
are randomly killed. It's disturbing
to imagine how easily we and our
loved ones could be kicked off the
planet, and these incidents bring
that home.
We can take steps to prevent
this sort of thing from happening
here, even though it's not likely
we would have to deal with any
such incidents in the next 20 years.
Taking action, though, would
further reduce the possibility and
would leave us with better defenses
in place.
The cost is zero dollars and we
can implement it quickly.
It doesn't take federal or state
action to improve our security in
this case. Their solutions cost too
much. They're too invasive.
The answer is for the District
55 School Board to repeal its policy
against staff carrying weapons.
Our culture probably can't handle"
open carry, and the board could
retain a ban at that level, but there's
no reason staff members who
qualify for a concealed handgun
license shouldn't be able to arm
themselves at school.
If a potentially violent incident
were to happen m one of our
schools, having armed staff
members on the premises would
ensure that it could be addressed
immediately. No longer would it
be solely the shooter who is able to
move armed through the school.
• See Guns, page 5
