Too many handouts
In regards to the Aug 31 article about a program providing students with free supplies, I find it confusing that a child whose family can afford a safari in Tanzania takes advantage of free shoes and boots and school supplies. Hopefully there is not a child out there whose parents cannot truly afford to provide new (or gently used) footwear going without because supplies have run out.
I ran Epstein clothing clubs to clothe my oldest child, and when my youngest came along, I bought most of his clothing at yard sales or clearance racks. There are too many handouts being taken advantage of today, and too many handouts being expected.
Gale Linscott
Millinocket
Drone warning
Though the cool, new technology of drones has only begun to make more than minor mention in the news, it is an issue that bears some serious thought. As with any up-and-coming industry that is a sign of progress, of man’s triumph over nature, there is a bad as well as a good side to the use of drones, and we should tread carefully before approving any use of them.
Before we approve of any use of this advance, let us consider the risks. Yes, there are privacy concerns, as when a camera on a unmanned aerial vehicle might take pictures of us without our permission. Yes, there are safety issues, for a drone might interfere with an airplane and cause a catastrophe. And there is the debate of whether law enforcement should be able to use the devices at all.
Yet much more than that, as the population grows and the use of drones proliferates, who is to say that drones will not be used in more nefarious ways? A person could easily manipulate a drone remotely to be a dive-bomber or could arm it with a bomb, an aerosol or other weapon. Never mind that rules might dictate that lethal weapons are not permitted; criminals do not abide by such laws, and apprehending a drone used in a crime, even if possible, might never lead to the perpetrator.
So let’s be very, very careful before we endorse these fun, seemingly harmless toys. They may be wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Steve Colhoun
Addison
Gun background checks needed
After reading Jim Fossel’s Aug. 27 column on background checks for guns, I have to wonder just how fossilized his thinking really is. Making people take responsibility for their guns, and who they sell them to is the least we as a society can do to make sure that guns we sell go to people with no criminal backgrounds, mental health issues or people with court orders designed to protect people they would want to harm.
A gun show is no different than some thug selling guns in an alley out of the back of his car to criminals. Private sales are no better when selling to total strangers. Isn’t it worth the peace of mind just to be sure that when you sell a gun that it goes to someone who isn’t flagged as being on a list of prohibited buyers?
People are dying by guns at a truly alarming rate, including children and their teachers, journalists, church and theater goers, in malls, in Wal-Marts, in restaurants and schools. Until people take real responsibility for something as simple as a background check, this will continue until at some point everyone in the United States will be connected in some way with someone who died at the hands of someone using a gun.
Obviously background checks won’t completely fix the problem, but it will at the very least make it harder for criminals and the mentally ill to acquire a gun and if it saves even one life, it will have been totally worth it.
Chuck Carter
Bangor