I’m a gun owner and this federal firearms bill is exactly what we need | Opinion

A good gun bill

I write in support of the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2023. I’m a gun owner and target shooter. My guns came from licensed firearms dealers after passing background checks. It’s essential that background checks are conducted and done before an individual acquires a firearm.

The proposed bill requires that all gun transfers go through a federal firearms dealer with exceptions for gifts or transfers between family members, sharing at a range or hunting. No rights are infringed with this legislation. The language of the bill specifically prohibits the creation of a registry.

Preservation of our rights requires common sense regulation. I urge my representatives in Congress to support the Background Checks Act of 2023 and ask everyone else to do the same.

Malcolm Smith, Charlotte

Teacher raises

The writer is a N.C. public school teacher.

The N.C. Department of Public Instruction is touting that North Carolina leads the nation in National Board Certified teachers. That looks like something to be proud of, and it means we have many teachers dedicated to their craft, but it is also a mark of shame.

Most teachers in North Carolina get that certification for the pay raise — especially after the state ended raises for master’s degrees. So considering they have to get certified to make any money teaching in our state, and the fact that even with those raises N.C. teachers are still some of the worst paid in the country, maybe we should do something about that.

Anthony Yodice, Charlotte

Balance at UNC

The writer was N.C. governor, 1985-93.

I eagerly read every brilliantly crafted op-ed column from UNC law professor Gene Nichol. One can learn from his mastery of histrionic invective: the lofty self-image, insulting and blaming those he detests, while over-reacting to every dramatized threat.

Writing on Feb. 8, he twists words of UNC-Chapel Hlil trustees with whom he disagrees on academic governance, as if to shame them. Yes, the 2,171-member faculty controls curriculum, and can block the proposed School of Civic Life and Leadership if it chooses, but trustees deserve credit for advocating diversity of thought. If Nichol’s attitude prevails, UNC will not add even 20 conservative philosophers, economists, sociologists and lawyers.

He reproaches UNC’s Board of Governors for seeking more ideological balance in the faculty and curriculum. To him, freedom of speech protects the faculty’s right to require applicants for faculty positions and student admissions to clarify their personal political views. Such virtue-signaling requirements have proven effective nationwide for screening out conservative scholars. Hopefully, we’ll learn soon whether the First Amendment permits required speech.

Jim Martin, Mooresville

NC GOP lawmakers

Regarding the Parents’ Bill of Rights that N.C. Republican lawmakers are pushing: I recognize that Republicans have learned to live in an alternative universe where reality goes along the lines of cultural wars. What I do not understand is how most of these men and women who are college educated, well-traveled beyond our area beaches, and relatively accomplished in their careers can be so clueless about the needs of ordinary citizens, especially those on the margins of our society. I do not want to think of them as simply mean and blindly driven by ideology, but I do not have a better explanation.

Sam Roberson, Fort Mill

Judicial reform

As a longtime member of Temple Beth El, I was saddened to read the Feb. 7 article about one of our former lay leaders pleading guilty to and being convicted of a child pornography charge.

As an advocate of judicial reform, I was further dismayed to see him get off with a slap on the wrist — 2 years of probation, no jail time, yet he had video of girls as young as age 7 engaged in sex acts. He was arrested on six felony charges, yet through a plea deal five of the most serious just went away.

Can there be a better example of the need for reform in our judicial system? We have one system for the wealthy, quite another for regular folks. It’s time for one system that works for all.

Susan Proctor, Charlotte

NC Supreme Court

North Carolina’s method of electing judges, rather than employing a merit-selection system, has politicized the N.C. Supreme Court to an extreme.

The court, on transparent political grounds, will reconsider the court’s decisions in two important voting rights cases decided in December. This “reconsideration” flies in the face of the court’s ruling, also in December, in a workers compensation case. In that case, Chief Justice Newby extolled the imperative to respect precedent, known in Latin as stare decisis (“Let the decision stand.”) He wrote “The principle of stare decisis directs this court to adhere to its long-established precedent to provide consistency and uniformity in the law.”

If honoring precedent truly means anything to the N.C. Supreme Court, it means that the rulings in the two voting-rights cases must stand.

David Erdman, Charlotte

This story was originally published February 12, 2023 at 5:30 AM.