EDMOND —
The horror visited upon Sandy Hook Elementary by a lone gunman has turned the national debate about gun rights and violence on its head. While many more people across the nation are now actually talking about the problem of violence within our society, the debate about guns, ownership rights and many other side issues have become hopelessly entangled in these highly charged and emotional issues.
Following the nation’s 2nd Amendment and allowing gun ownership is really a pretty straightforward issue. But as with most any other debate, it’s the details of implementing policy, law and justice within our society that becomes mired in vitriolic speech and never-ending filibusters in Congress and elsewhere.
Leaving gun rights and how to deal with them for another editorial, the issue of school safety is the more paramount problem for society to deal with at this moment. Many solutions have been thrown out there in editorials, blogs, talk shows and the social media universe. But what many of those individual solutions fail to recognize is that turning our schools into fortified prisons is not the answer to stopping the violence threatening their hallways.
As with any problem of this magnitude, we believe it will be multiple solutions enacted as larger policy that ultimately will help heal the hearts of parents, educators and students so wounded by the loss of kindergartners at Sandy Hook Elementary.
Taking a hard look at mental health in our society must be a top priority across the nation. Too many people, their children and grandchildren are not receiving the care or services they need to put them on a path toward a healthier existence. For too many years, mental health services have fallen to the budget cutting clippers in almost every state of the nation. Oklahoma, in particular, is guilty of throwing the problem of mental illness back into the faces of individual communities and telling them to find ways of dealing with the problems that ensue. While communities must continue to be a wellspring of care and solutions, these issues are larger than individuals and their communities.
Through public education, nonprofit charitable work and caring word of mouth, most people in America know the signs of heart attack and stroke and what to do about them. But how many people know the signs of mental crisis and what to do about them? Not very many and that leads to a national feeling of helplessness in how to solve these concerns.
It’s time to ask ourselves if we’re doing enough as a society and as individuals to help those who are in crisis and those who are suffering because they cannot afford the care they need.
Lt. Gov. Todd Lamb and his newly appointed Commission on School Security surely will look at the myriad suggestions of how to make our schools safer places. And we want them to do just that, but adding more bulletproof glass, more chainlink fencing, more LobbyGuard check-in systems, more security cameras and possibly even armed police officers can only do so much. This commission should look at all those options and more and at the same time, the state should look at a new mental health commission that can focus on solving some of these problems on the other side of the school yard fence.
Opinion
OUR VIEW: School safety remains paramount
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Seeing yourself as the world sees you
Ever try seeing yourself as others see you, or your piece of the world as others see your piece of the world?
You know, if you could get others to see you, or if you could get other parts of the world to see your part of it?
Narcissism and inferiority, both, can trap us in front of a mirror, admiring or lamenting, pleased or not pleased by the vision we presumably offer others.
Yet, what’s happened over the last three days, since yet another deadly tornado rolled through Moore, offers an entirely different perspective.
Through strength or weakness, we may take an interest in how we project. But when the “Today Show” is broadcast from the rubble and the network evening news has placed its anchor amidst the carnage; and when the news channels descend upon the destruction and every newspaper in the country is playing your and your neighbors’ plight bigger than its own hometown news, it turns surreal. -
ROCK DOC: Japanese find a new source of natural gas
The name “natural gas” might be a puzzle. After all, how could there be such a thing as unnatural gas? The reason we call natural gas what we do has to do with history. There was a day that people made burnable gas by heating coal. The gases that came off the coal were piped around cities where they did things like light street lamps and even power cook stoves in homes.
Coal gas had its down side. For one thing, it often contained carbon monoxide. And it took energy to make the gas, so it never could be truly cheap. -
Witnesses missing; Behenna case could be heard at Supreme Court
The film “Breaker Morant” was nominated for an Oscar for the best screenplay in 1980. It told the story of Harry “Breaker” Morant, an Australian who served in the British Army and was court-martialed for alleged war crimes during the Boer War in Southern Africa in the early years of the last century.
That conflict pitted the British Army against the descendants of the Dutch settlers who had migrated to what is now South Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries. The majority of them were farmers and in their language of Afrikaans were known as “Boers.” -
Don’t leave Oklahoma!
May is graduation season. As I have done every year as lieutenant governor, I have given multiple commencement speeches. Advice flows freely during this time and it usually runs the gamut. What to do, what not to do, how to do ‘x’, be sure not to do ‘y.’ Too often commencement speakers speak in big generalities. So general, the message is frequently lost or forgotten.
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Last-minute funding proposals not in state’s best interest
All indications point to this being the last week of this year’s legislative session. The Legislature will go home a week early. This is good news for Oklahomans as not only will there be cost savings but all Oklahomans should breathe a sigh of relief when the Legislature stops making new laws a week ahead of schedule.
As usual, the Legislature will take a number of important votes during the last week. Some will be forced due to attempts to introduce and pass far-reaching, new policies that should have been introduced much earlier in the year. -
BY THE NUMBERS: Oklahoma still needs to invest in its economy
After six months of stagnation, the Oklahoma economy finally appears to be expanding again albeit still weakly. Unfortunately, our leaders aren’t making the investments we need to give our economic prospects a boost.
Last week the Oklahoma Office of Management and Enterprise Services reported that in April state General Revenue fund collections were 5.2 percent above the estimate and 14.7 percent higher than last year’s collections. Under normal circumstances, such a report would indicate that the Oklahoma economy was very strong. But this isn’t a normal circumstance, and April isn’t a normal month. -
Americans deserve the truth on Benghazi
Lately, the media has been consumed by the controversies surrounding the White House. Among these controversies is the horrific terrorist attack on the United States’ diplomatic compound in Benghazi that took place Sept. 11, 2012. As more people come forward with additional information regarding the attack on the consulate, many Americans, including myself, are still asking for the truth.
The Obama Administration and the State Department have been less than forthcoming with key information on Benghazi and recent information points toward a major cover-up. -
Seizure of AP phone records insult to independent press
Distrust of government secrecy has been elevated to an exceptional level with the disclosure the Justice Department covertly examined two months of Associated Press phone records to determine who leaked details to the AP about a foiled terrorist plot.
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HEY HINK: Some people just are not cut out for command
Recent headlines cause me to remember an incident that occurred on an army base some years ago. Warning here: I’m taking some liberties with names and details, but the basic outline of events is accurate.
A certain company commander, let’s call him Captain Duntz, had command of a motor pool on a large army base in the continental U.S. -
We’ve become our own worst enemies
The past couple months have been marked by a seeming unprecedented number of man-made tragedies, as distinct from those caused by violent outbursts of the natural world, such as earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis.
You don’t want to dwell too long on the negative, but we do have to take notice of horrific human events and we owe it to ourselves to respond to them in some way. We don’t always agree on those responses, however, and that usually exacerbates the problem. - More Opinion Headlines
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Seeing yourself as the world sees you
