Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 29, 1995 TAG: 9505030001
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The law wasn't put in place for the city by chance, but because of the Concerned Citizens of Roanoke. After a group of some 200 citizens went before Roanoke City Council in 1991, council instructed the city manager to create a committee to look at the existing curfew law. Court officials, Social Service and school officials, people from the city's Human Resources Department and Roanoke citizens worked together for more than a year to create the new law. The curfew's primary purpose is to protect our children from violence and drug situations that exist on our streets today.
We believe coverage by your newspaper as to why citizens asked for a strengthened law will reveal major problems we had, and are starting to solve by getting children 11 to 16 years old off the streets after 11 p.m. during the week. City officials are aware of the need for an enforceable curfew law.
Unfortunately, Patricia Holdaway's case is the first to come full cycle to the courts. We believe further investigation will reveal a 16-year-old boy with problems. This young man received five citations for curfew violations. If parents cannot control their children, then society has to.
The article makes Roanoke and the court system look like a vexatious authority because the mother was arrested. Defense Attorney Jeffrey Dorsey and the American Civil Liberties Union's executive director Kent Willis might do well to look at the real problems here.
MARY TERRY, JAMES ST. CLAIR JR.
Members, Concerne Citizens of Roanoke
ROANOKE
Tinker Day helps the environment?
I WENT to a little (some say backward) church college back in the olden days. Perhaps that's why I fail to see how a band of Hollins women, llamas and dogs hiking up Tinker Mountain helped environmental awareness as reported in your April 8 article ``Women, 14 llamas share environment.''
They used to hike up Tinker Mountain for fun. They simply called it Tinker Day.
My daughter and I hiked up Tinker Mountain when she was a teen-ager. We thought we were having fun. We didn't know that we were helping the environment. I asked a scholar who has a master's degree from Hollins College how hiking up Tinker Mountain could help the environment. She gave it much deliberation, and replied, ``Beats me.''
Maybe I can find out from the greatest environmentalist of our time. I'll call Al Gore.
FRED LANDIS
ROANOKE
Goodlatte assaults truth about guns
REP. BOB Goodlatte visited Roanoke County recently to speak about the "Contract With America.'' When the subject turned to the recently passed ban on assault weapons, he remarked that he opposed the measure; that its supporters want to take away hunting weapons; and the only differences between assault weapons and hunting weapons, as defined by the bill, were ``cosmetic.'' To illustrate his point, Goodlatte pointed out that weapons manufactured with bayonet holders are banned by the bill, and he asked those of us in attendance to recall the last time someone was killed by a bayonet.
First, let's set the record straight on the motivations of the supporters of the assault-weapons ban. The truth is that the bill's supporters know the difference between assault weapons and hunting weapons, and they were careful not to enact legislation that would affect hunting weapons.
Goodlatte has resorted to foul play by fabricating a false image of his political opponents, and then condemning them on the basis of his falsehood. He should spend less time making up stories and more time !earning the difference between assault weapons and hunting weapons.
Yes, I recall people being killed by bayonets. It happens a lot in wars. Military recruits are issued weapons with bayonet holders, and are taught how to kill human beings with bayonets. However, I cannot recall any occasions when hunters have killed deer, squirrels or groundhogs with bayonets. In Virginia, we have rifle and bow-and-arrow hunting seasons, but we don't have a bayonet-hunting season.
Legitimate hunting weapons are free from restriction by the recently passed ban on assault weapons, as indeed they should be. But weapons manufactured with bayonet holders are assault weapons, not just cosmetically enhanced hunting weapons. Goodlatte, like Chicken Little, needs to awaken to reality.
BO CHAGNON
ROANOKE
The children never had a chance
OF ALL the things I've seen and been through during my life - Korea, the loss of my mother whom I loved more than anyone - I don't think any has had as much effect on me as this sad tragedy in Oklahoma City. I think one reason is that no one could have convinced me that one of our so-called citizens could have the heart to do this to so many people, and to so many innocent children. The children never had a chance to learn of the evil and hatred this world possesses.
God bless and protect this country and the world, I pray.
JAMES VENABLE
GOODVIEW
by CNB