Recent editorials from North Carolina newspapers:
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May 30
Wilmington StarNews on video-gambling legislation:
The N.C. General Assembly seems intent on making the 2018 short session live up to its name. Held every other year, the session is used primarily to make adjustments to the two-year budget that is adopted in the longer, odd-year session, and to complete leftover business.
With a veto-proof majority in both the House and Senate, the Republican leadership can pretty much do as it pleases. We hope our region’s House delegation - especially the Republican members - will encourage Speaker Tim Moore to move for consideration House Bill 577, which toughens laws on video sweepstakes parlors.
These gambling joints have long been a scourge on North Carolina communities, notably several years ago in Brunswick County. As new laws were passed to try to stop the gambling operations, the fight against them proved to be more like a game of Whac-A-Mole, with operators popping up and finding loopholes to survive the heavy rubber mallet of the law.
House Bill 577 creates a Class G felony for video sweepstakes parlors that, as the Winston-Salem Journal reported, “possess more than four electronic machines or devices within 100 feet of any other electronic sweepstakes devices - a situation some describe as running ’big rooms.’ “
“Big rooms” are especially troublesome for law enforcement, and harm the general well-being and safety of an area. They often become breeding grounds for crime, violence and mischief in general.
The good news is that HB 577 is a leftover from last year’s session, when it was passed by the Senate, but then stalled in the House. All that’s needed is for Speaker Moore to get the bill back to the floor of the House, where it would likely pass and be sent on to Gov. Roy Cooper for his signature.
Although the legislature has not been able to completely ban sweepstakes parlors, it’s vital that police chiefs, sheriffs and prosecutors have more tools to at least better contain them. This bill is that very tool, and it would take little time and effort for Speaker Moore to move it.
There are a lot of big and complex issues before the General Assembly. This one, however, is straightforward and easily addressed. And most important, it’s legislation that our cities and towns need as they try to develop and improve their communities for job creation and greater quality of life.
We urge Speaker Moore to act quickly on HB 577, chalk it up as a win and file it away as a piece of finished business.
Online: http://www.starnewsonline.com
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May 29
The Charlotte Observer on President Donald Trump and those living in the U.S. without documentation:
Donald Trump is far from the only president - Republican or Democrat - with policies that harshly treat people living in the country illegally … Trump also is far from the only president to speak out of both sides of his mouth on immigration - although he might be the first to so blatantly lie about what his administration has chosen to do.
That lie - expressed in a weekend tweet - blamed Democrats for a “horrible law” that separated immigrant children from their parents at the border. That’s untrue. Previously, children and parents caught at the border were sent to facilities in which they were allowed to remain together. But Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a new policy (not law) in May that all people crossing the border illegally would be subject to criminal prosecution, and that because children can’t be held in adult jails, families would be split up.
The policy has prompted heart-wrenching stories of terrified children being forcefully separated from horrified parents. Those awful scenes - and the swell of criticism that’s followed - apparently was enough for Trump to wrongly point the finger elsewhere, but others in his administration are unrepentant. “If you don’t want your child separated, then don’t bring them across the border illegally,” Sessions said.
Which is, to the policy’s supporters, exactly the point. The separation tactic is a deterrent - designed simply to make immigrants think twice before heading to the border with their families. It’s an approach previous administrations have used, too, including Trump’s immediate predecessor.
For the last decade, the little-known Alien Transfer Exit Program has transported adult male immigrants thousands of miles from the place they were caught at the U.S. border before releasing them back into Mexico. ATEP was launched in 2008, near the end of the George W. Bush presidency, but the program was ramped up under Barack Obama in 2011 after an increase in border crossings …
Unlike Trump, however, previous presidents were conflicted about our immigration laws. While deportations increased under both Bush and Obama - and while the latter dramatically grew the size of Immigration and Customs Enforcement - each advocated for Congress to pass immigration reform that better recognized the value of all immigrants and the circumstances that brought many to our borders.
Congress - and specifically conservative Republicans - have blocked such reform. Their inaction has failed America and left the country with a convoluted and contradictory immigration system. It also has handed the issue to a president whose rhetoric dehumanizes both illegal and legal immigrants, and whose stone-hearted polices follow suit.
Online: http://www.charlotteobserver.com
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May 24
Asheville Citizen-Times on keeping schools safe:
There’s no substitute for vigilance when it comes to keeping schools safe.
Twice in the last two months, a potential threat has been headed off in a Western North Carolina school. In both cases, other students became aware of the situation and notified authorities …
Would either of them have carried out the threats? We don’t know. We do know that the campuses in question potentially are safer because students chose to get involved.
Guns aren’t needed to secure schools
There has been a lot of talk about how to make schools safer in the wake of shootings in Florida and Texas. Some suggestions are useful, some of limited value and some no help at all …
Assigning an armed officer to each school again is something that sounds good in theory but has problems in practice. Specialized training is necessary. What can that officer do if a shooter is in a crowd of students? Both the Columbine and Marjory Stoneman Douglas schools had armed officers on duty.
The worst idea floated yet is to arm teachers. That would add more weapons to the equation, wielded by people with no law-enforcement training in a milieu where it would be easy for students to overpower the teacher and take the weapon. What could be worse?
The solution lies in counselors
The best suggestion thus far is to increase the number of counselors in public schools. It does not take a genius to realize that people who shoot up schools are troubled. An increase in counselors increases the chances that a potential killer will be headed away from a course of carnage …
Little can done about the student who plots in secret, but many seek attention and this can be their undoing. Anyone - fellow student, staff member, family member - who hears about a threat of violence at a school should report it immediately. It might be a false alarm, but it’s better to err on the side of caution.
In the case of family members, it is important to overcome any perceived stigma about seeking treatment. Taking your child to a therapist doesn’t mean you’ve failed as a parent.
The worst way to treat a potential threat is to ignore it …
Online: http://www.journalnow.com
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