Stop tying parents' hands on discipline

In the aftermath of the tragedy at Littleton, Colo., I have heard several nationally prominent people, including William Bennett, former drug czar, and former Vice President Dan Quayle say that the parents should be held accountable for the actions of the children.

While I agree in general with this sentiment, I also feel that our politicians and others would be well advised to stop handicapping parents when we attempt to correct a child for unacceptable behavior.

Laws exist that mandate parental notification whenever a child seeks medical care for a common cold, but other laws allow a child to obtain birth control, abortions and get treatment for sexually transmitted diseases without parental notification. Some laws actually forbid health care providers from notifying parents in this type of situation. What kind of lunacy is this?

Some states require that parents report runaway children within 24 hours. Try contacting any police jurisdiction to obtain information, pass on suspicions or check on the status of a runaway report.

If you get any cooperation, consider yourself lucky. The police are too busy to truly address the issue of runaways.

In many cases, you might even get a response along the lines of "call the jurisdiction where the original report was filed." If you do, the response then might be, "Don't call us. We will call you if we discover anything." The sad part is that the police really are too busy to deal with this type of problem.

If, like most concerned parents, you seek treatment for a troubled child in the form of counseling, medication or hospitalization and the outcome is less then you had hoped for, do not go to the justice system seeking help; been there, done that. Your efforts will be less than satisfactory unless you are the parent of a child who has actually broken a law.

This is not meant as an indictment of the police, who operate under many idiotic laws that limit their options in dealing with children.

Police do the best they can with limited options.

Laws intended to protect the child have become so convoluted that, they do nothing but handicap parents who are attempting to raise children into mature, intelligent and caring adults.

Many politicians, social workers and other "concerned" people contribute to this nightmare by continuing to limit the options of parents and other authority figures.

Contrary to what many think, providing corporal punishment is not the end of the world. There are times it is, or should be, perfectly acceptable.

I do not subscribe to beating children, but I have never seen a slap on the buttocks result in lifelong anti-social behavior.

Schools should have the authority to discipline unruly children by corporal punishment if other means have failed to get "the child's attention."

If people have difficulty accepting this, they should consider allowing parents to apply corporal punishment at home without the fear of being wrongly accused of "child abuse."

Correcting a child at home is not only a parent's responsibility. It should also be their right. Maybe, just maybe, if this were allowed, some children's public behavior would be more acceptable.

Parents should not look to the teacher, preacher or police to teach our children. Politicians, social workers and counselors should stop with the lunacy that seems to believe that any form of punishment directed at a child is abuse.

Paul A. Piepho, Annapolis

Common-sense limits on guns are needed

Sooner or later, the moderate gun supporters must reject their more radical brethren and join the majority in this country in supporting common-sense limitations on gun ownership.

Let's get by Second Amendment arguments and knee-jerk calls for freedom and try to limit the carnage that the gun industry is foisting on this country.

Just as tobacco's big lies were unearthed, the gun industry will be found to be profiteers of death using "Charlatan" Heston as its cover boy.

Guns for hunting, personal protection and sport shooting can be protected while weapons and bullets meant for death are eliminated.

President Clinton has a common-sense proposal before Congress: background checks, minimum age requirements, banning high capacity clips, child locks, one purchase per month and better regulation of gun show purchases.

How do these limit freedom to hunt or protect oneself?

For the men who equate guns with manhood, grow up. Although the latest school tragedy was perpetrated by disturbed children, their easy access to high-powered, killing weapons made their actions possible.

Until the National Rifle Association stops being the lackey for the gun industry and returns to its roots of protecting and supporting the hunter and sportsman, everyone who pays dues to this organization and does not lobby for change shares the guilt for these mindless deaths.

Alan McAllister, Severna Park

Our actions to contain conflict may fuel it

Altruism is great, but as a pragmatic retired military officer, I balance it with a strong sense of survival.

I am far from a "peace-nik," and do believe, as the character in "Braveheart" said, "sometimes peace exists only on the other side of war."

So I do ascribe to the "Just War Theory," that some wars are justified. However, when choosing the future of my country over another, I unfailingly choose "my country."

Since it's air war against Serbia began March 24, NATO has changed the military mission at least three times.

NATO started off "to degrade the Serbian army's ability to hurt the Kosovars." (Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, March 24). Then it expanded to "we will destroy the Serbian army" (U.S. Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark, March 28).

Then, about 10 days into the air war, our president further escalated the war by saying, "We will destroy the Serbian infrastructure." But now it looks like we are destroying the entire nation of Serbia.

On April 25, NATO announced that it would further expand the mission to include wider bombing, a possible naval embargo and planning for ground war. These last ideas make our old nemesis Russia unhappy.

A review of history would reveal close ties between Russia and Serbia. We are inexorably moving toward a much wider war in the Balkans and the Adriatic region.

One of the administration's reasons in starting this ever-widening war was "to keep the conflict in Kosovo from spreading."

T. Strother, Annapolis

Try harder to rout Glen Burnie's beavers

I think that officials are not trying hard enough to remove the beavers from back yards in Glen Burnie.

I agree with the residents that if they were the president of the United States, officials would do everything in their power to remove the beavers.

As far as I know, the beavers could care less whether they were eating trees in someone's back yard or in a nature preserve. If officials can get rid of the Washington beavers, they can get rid of these.

Carli Jenkins, Crofton

The beavers in Glen Burnie should be removed. The beavers are being destructive and gnawing at people's trees. They are also building dams in the once-peaceful Sawmill Creek.

Officials "moved" the beavers from President Clinton's back yard. Why can't they remove the beavers from Glenview Avenue back yards?

It would be to the beaver's advantage to be in a zoo or wildlife preserve. Then they wouldn't be chased or "harassed" by Glen Burnie residents.

Siobhan Steen, Crofton

The writers are fifth-graders at Crofton Elementary School.

At high school, no choice but to wait and stay calm

The possibility of a copycat crime was on the minds and in the conversations of Glen Burnie High School students after what happened in Littleton, Colo. The school was alive with rumors about possible attacks on the building. It seemed just talk. Then on April 29, three freshmen were arrested. Bomb parts were found in the Harundale home of one boy. Students reacted with disbelief and despair.

Numerous parents were considering taking their children out of school the following Friday because of the trouble. Administrators canceled a junior/senior assembly and a pep rally.

This is not the first time Glen Burnie High has dealt with bomb threats.

Police say there have been three weapons offenses this year at the school. These included two pistols obtained from a locker, one loaded. There have been six bomb threats this year.

Threats have been coming for the past three years, at least. Last year, Anne Arundel County public schools received 120 bomb threats that led to dozens of arrests.

A desk scrawled with a message about impending death looked menacing.

I have spoken to a number of students who had suspicions before the arrests a week ago. I brushed off the allegations as nothing to worry about. I thought that I knew most of the people with whom I went to school and felt that they weren't capable of such a crime. I felt absolutely no anxiety that what happened in Colorado could happen at Glen Burnie High.

As entertainment editor of the school newspaper, "Big Red," I was working on a story about the rash of bomb threats and how Glen Burnie was affected by the Denver-area incident. My opinion of the situation at Glen Burnie nowneeds serious reassessment.

The arrests have heightened the alarming thought that events elsewhere inspire kids. The only option that the students and faculty at Glen Burnie have is to wait and try to stay calm.

Mike Knipp, Glen Burnie

The writer is a senior at Glen Burnie High School.

Pub Date: 5/09/99