Mailbag: Reader defends Augusta County School Board on book policies

I find your opinion (“Augusta County Second Amendment guy wants to protect schoolkids from … books?” Jan. 31 AFP) interesting. I wonder if you have children. There are books that have no place in the schools. The books aren’t being banned. No one is calling for them to be burned. People just want them introduced at an appropriate age.

I would love for life to change and we no longer would need to worry about children being killed in our schools. That a trip to Walmart is no longer a place where people are looking around for a person with a gun ready to shoot every person they see. Until America starts getting its act together on mental health, this is the world we live in. I hope people continue to protect our children and themselves.

– Deb

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The only way life changes so that we don’t have to worry about children being shot in schools is to get our politicians who have been bought and paid for by the NRA to start representing our interests, and not the interests of the gun manufacturers who keep selling the idea that we need more guns to protect ourselves from each other.

Mental health is used as a talking point by the NRA and its bought and paid for Republicans in Congress to argue for inaction on gun control, and people who have allowed themselves to buy the idea that the Second Amendment is more important than life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are all too eager to buy what they’re being sold.

In the meantime, Republicans who plead and cry about mental health whenever we have another high-profile shooting do nothing to work with Democrats when it comes to approving more money to actually pay for more counselors and psychologists and hospital spaces.

On the point about books and the local school board, I’m not sure where you get the idea that books aren’t being banned. That’s precisely what the school board is trying to do here. Removing a book from a school library is banning it.

We have actual trained professionals who know based on their training what is age-appropriate – they’re called librarians.

Blessed are you if you haven’t had bad things happen in your life. For those of us who have had to endure horrible things, and try to pick up the pieces, it can help to read about other people who have done the same, and realize that we’re not alone.

You can say you’re protecting kids from having to think about those realities if that makes you feel better, but they’re going to have to face harsh realities sooner or later. It might be better if they did it through a book than through drugs, alcohol or guns.

– Chris