Letters (Feb. 20, 2013)

Written by Hillsboro Free Press Tuesday, 19 February 2013 13:40

Grant to help seniors

‘Return to Home’

Parkside Homes would like to express our gratitude to the Hillsboro Community Founda­tion and Kansas Health Founda­tion for the generous grant awarded Feb. 12. It is an honor to be part of a community that is committed to growth and new opportunities for Hillsboro and Marion County residents.

With this $2,500 grant, Parkside will begin a “Return to Home Program” designed to help community members succeed as they return home after rehab or extended nursing care stays at Parkside.

The program features a liaison that will meet with individuals in their home to follow up and assist with completing discharge instructions. The majority of funds received through the grant will aid in providing for items needed for individual recovery success as well as prepared meals to make the transition home easier.

When returning from a rehabilitative or extended nursing care stay, people are adjusting to significant changes while still healing. This can be an extremely vulnerable time as they are at a higher risk for re-injury, infection, depression, etc.

This project hopes to address those concerns and encourage success for each participant in their own homes leading to a happier and healthier community.

One goal of this program is to save unnecessary medical costs and help our community respond with innovative ways to embrace changes in government directed healthcare policies while increasing the quality of life for participants. It is encouraging to see funds awarded for development of this program.

Thank you for your investment in the Hillsboro community and Parkside Homes. Your commitment to supporting quality of life in Hillsboro makes it possible to provide this new service at no cost to participants this year.

Gretchen Wagner, exec. director

Parkside Homes

History shows result

of gun-control laws

I’d like to present a little history concerning gun control from the past 100 years.

From 1915-17, 1 million to 1 .5 million Armenians were killed in Ottoman Turkey; from 1929-45, 20 million political opponents and farming communities were murdered in the Soviet Union; from 1933-45, 20 million political opponents, Jews, Gypsies, critics and examples were murdered in occupied Europe by Nazi Germany; from 1927-49, the Nationalist Chinese killed 10 million political opponents and army conscripts; from 1949-76, 20-35 million opponents, rural populations and enemies of the state of Communist China were murdered; from 1960-81, 100-200 thousand Mayans, Indians and political opponents were killed in Guatemala; from 1971-79, 300,000 Christians and political enemies were killed in Uganda; from 1975-79, 2 million educated people and political enemies were killed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia; from 1994 on, 800,000 Tutsi people were killed in Rwanda.

These countries all imposed gun control schemes such as permits, government lists of ownership, ban on possession, ban on private ownership, licensing of owners, confiscation powers, licenses for ammunition, photo ID with fingerprinting, justification for ownership by defining the “need,” registration of all guns, high fees for ownership of guns, ammunition, severe penalties, etc.

Sounds familiar doesn’t it?

I’m sure a lot of people would say these atrocities couldn’t and wouldn’t happen here in the United States. I would point out the history of people in our country that were either underarmed or unarmed, and the results of their contact with those who were superior in armament.

Custer lost the Battle of the Little Bighorn because his troops, outfitted with single shot rifles, were outgunned by the Sioux, who had repeating rifles in lever-action form.

We have had many laws written in this country to deny people the right to protect them­selves from those who would do them harm and, because of those laws, were kept in servitude even when the law of the land freed them from slavery.

On another front, the United States should also be included in the above statistics: From 1973 to 2013, the government condoned murder of 53 million children through “health care” by abortion at the average rate of 3,723 children per day for 39-plus years.

I guess we really don’t care about children as much as we’d like to posture. If we truly want to save our children, I would submit that we need to seek a change of our hearts. What is in our hearts? Check what comes out of our mouths (Matthew 12:34). How do we change our hearts (John 3:16, John 10:10)?

In light of history, ours and others’, we should (and I will) resist any form of new gun laws that seek to infringe upon or redefine the purpose of the Second Amendment added by our founders as one of the foundational laws of our country to ensure that we are able to protect those inalienable rights endowed to us by our Creator from those, both foreign and domestic, who would seek to usurp those rights by the rule of man.

The Second Amendment is in place for all legal citizens of this country, not just for the 4 million NRA members, and you as a citizen have the right to use or ignore that right at your discretion. You don’t have the right to deny other citizens of their right to choose, just as we don’t have the right to take the life of the most innocent of innocents.

When a government seeks to limit the right of its citizenry to protect itself, you should be worried about what hidden intentions are about to be loosed on its populace.

Daryl Enos

Marion