In this issue:
FOCUS: Charleston Parks Conservancy launches April litter cleanup program
COMMENTARY, Brack: Don’t buy specious logic on unsafe gun proposal
IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Charleston RiverDogs
NEWS BRIEFS: $500 million fund is new to state’s $10 billion spending plan
FEEDBACK: Yes, budgets are important
MYSTERY PHOTO: Old church
CALENDAR: Learn about women creators at special history talk
New hospital dedicated. Hats off to MUSC for dedication of the new MUSC Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital and Pearl Tourville Women’s Pavilion, which will be open in October to parents and families. A dedication with remarks from Jenkins, Gov. Henry McMaster and others took place Aug. 9. The new hospital will have 250 beds and lots of other new features for patients. To learn more, visit this link.
Chris Brooks, Mount Pleasant: “Linda Ketner is especially deserving to be recognized and thanked for her tireless advocacy that is at the heart of who she is and has stood for all her life. Linda has been an unshakeable champion for fairness and equality. This deeply-felt purpose has even prompted her to seek elected office when she felt we had few alternatives for progressive leadership in so many needed areas. ”
Judy Hines, Charleston: “. It is past time for action on a variety of matters that each, cumulatively, will bring about a reduction in gun violence.”
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | This time, it feels like something about guns is going to happen. After the Parkland slaughter of 17 students and teachers, inaction doesn’t seem to be a viable automatic political reflex for mass gun violence.
Maybe the nation has reached a tipping point, thanks to thousands of Florida students who marched on the state’s capital to pressure lawmakers to make common-sense reforms to curb the gun violence.
“The times have clearly changed,” University of South Florida political science professor Susan MacManus told a Tallahassee newspaper. “And the activism of the students and their parents and grandparents and everyone else has made this a bigger issue and a much more politically impactful issue. I think it has ramifications for any partisan race from the top of the ticket down to local races.”
By Lindsay Street, via StatehouseReport.com | A gun safety lobbying group founded in 2015 after South Carolina’s mass shooting at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston is still struggling to get lawmakers to listen. On Tuesday in Charleston, they’ll explain what they’re working on to get lawmakers’ attention.
Arm-in-Arm, a South Carolina grassroots group, said it is having trouble despite 2015 and 2016 polls showing more than 80 percent of South Carolinians favor stricter background checks on gun purchases.
“It’s reckless and irresponsible for South Carolina to not have reasonable laws that prevent people from getting guns if they should not have them in the first place,” spokesman Meghan Trezies said. “The biggest battle is to be heard.
Katharine DuV. Beard, Camden, S.C.: “Thank you for this paragraph in your article on gun control, ‘But don’t be fooled that banning bump stocks, which isn’t being completely pooh-poohed by the NRA, is real gun control. It’s a temporary concession to quell debate on bigger issues of real gun control. It’s part of the political game in Washington that assumes if you throw a little red meat to the voters, they won’t look at doing something more substantive and with more scope.’”
Other letters from Ben Moise of Charleston and George Wilson of Stone Mountain, Ga.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | After the Orlando shootings, my wife wrote a letter to several newspaper editors that made me think.
She boiled all of the back and forth about escalating gun violence in America into a simple, salient point that many seem to have missed: It’s become an issue of national security.
The glut of guns solely made for killing people — handguns and assault rifles — is changing America into a country where fearful people feel they need more and bigger guns to protect themselves. They respond to patronizing rhetoric from groups like the National Rifle Association who taunt that the federal government is going to take away people’s guns. Throughout the seven years of President Obama’s term, we’ve heard such chants time and time again, yet Obama hasn’t taken away guns.
By Andy Brack | The glut of guns solely made for killing people — handguns and assault rifles — is changing America into a country where fearful people feel they need more and bigger guns to protect themselves. They respond to patronizing rhetoric from groups like the National Rifle Association who taunt that the federal government is going to take away people’s guns. Throughout the seven years of President Obama’s term, we’ve heard such chants time and time again, yet Obama hasn’t taken away guns.
We Can Do Better, South Carolina! (2019) by editor and publisher Andy Brack offers incisive commentaries on the American South, politics, the common good and interesting South Carolina leaders. Available exclusively for Kindle for $7.99. A paperback version will be ready soon. Learn more.
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