The Republican nomination fight for the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors, reflections on Secretariat and the Boston bombings in Tuesday’s letters to the editor.

For real safety, machine guns

In her April 29 letter (“There’d be a fight for gun rights”), Jane Harmon said she resented NRA members being called “lackeys.”  No one called the NRA lackeys: David A. De Wolf had written that senators doing the NRA’s bidding were lackeys.

Patriotically, A.D. Smith also wrote thanking God those same senators defended our constitutional rights (“The Constitution’s protections worked,” April 29 letter).

Right-thinking Americans know that since the National Firearms Act of 1934, socialists and stooges of the U.N. have chipped away our Second Amendment rights to the point where only 300 million privately owned firearms are in this country. Gun violence is practically nonexistent only because so many lawful people own guns.

It’s time the NRA stood up for America. Stop advocating assault weapons: They’re already legal. It should fight for the right of anyone with cash to purchase a Thompson machine gun. No ID required. The Constitution never mentions the right to keep and bear candy bars. However, unlike guns, anyone can buy candy without ID or background check. Something is wrong here.

If gun-grabbers whine about public safety, point out that well- armed citizens would take out any lunatic armed with a Thompson before, at most, 40 casualties occurred.

RAYMOND FLORY

ROANOKE

Franklin County supervisors should have learned by now the harm they are causing.

Members of the Franklin County School Board are faced with choices, one as bad as the next, as they attempt to squeeze out $1.2 million in spending: Deny bright students the prestige of attending the Governor’s School? Lay off resource teachers and social workers who help struggling students? Bench middle school athletes? Freeze teachers’ salaries for the fifth year and turn back state money meant to boost their pay?

The only choice Franklin County supervisors have denied them: Do no harm.

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Jason Collins shows courage by coming out as gay, and the NBA displays tolerance by embracing him.

Jason Collins said he didn’t set out to become the first openly gay athlete on a major American professional sports team. But, as the journeyman NBA player wrote for Sports Illustrated this week, “I’m happy to start the conversation.”

If Collins had revealed his sexuality at the beginning of his 12-year career, the disclosure would have sent shock waves through the sports world and might have diminished his earnings potential. That’s why other gay athletes on professional teams had remained closeted until retiring. But when Collins’ first-person article hit the Internet on Monday, players, coaches, league executives and image-conscious shoe sponsor Nike issued unequivocal statements of support. President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton also saluted the athlete.

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By Linda Hopkins

Secretariat was born a few minutes after midnight March 30 at The Meadow in Doswell in southeastern Virginia, far from Kentucky’s fabled bluegrass. This year, original owner Penny Chenery, jockey Ron Turcotte and others gathered there to celebrate his birthday and the 40th anniversary of his dazzling Triple Crown win.

Secretariat is not remembered through the haze of sentimentality but stands firmly, an iconic piece of history, fame draped around his shoulders like a flag. For any who might have somehow been oblivious during this period, here is a retelling of the legend.

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Hopkins lives in Stuart.

The Blue Ridge Marathon and the Hollins District contest for the  Roanoke County Board of Supervisors in today’s letters to the editor.

Violence follows us home

By George Will

As the unendurable monotony of the offseason ends, celebrate baseball’s return with mental calisthenics. Everyone knows it was former Atlanta Manager Dave Bristol who said, “Only trouble I ever had with chewing tobacco was that the orthodontist said my daughter was going to have to give it up because of her braces.”

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Will is a columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group.

By John Long

My meandering mind: short observations and random thoughts that have crossed my mind lately, because instead of thinking of complex issues I’ve been watching basketball.

Speaking of basketball, this time of year I often recall something I once heard Larry King say: Sports are the most important unimportant thing in the world. I love the NCAA Division I tournament, but like a lot of longtime bracketeers I think some things have gone awry in recent Marches. Why 68 teams? This year, play-in games filled two 16 seeds, a 13, and an 11. Why such random seedings? How about 80 teams, with the less impressive programs playing in to the 15 and 16 seeds only? And why do teams travel to Philadelphia to play in the South Regional, to Dayton, Ohio, for the West, and to San Jose, Calif., for games in the East?

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Long is a Roanoke Times columnist and director of the Salem Museum.

Sweet victories in Timesland. Four teams, including two from Salem, earn the title state champ.

Viewers back home watching the Salem High School girls play in the Virginia High School League championship game Saturday night at Virginia Commonwealth University did a double take when reading the score line: Salem-Salem against Courtland.

The double billing for Salem is a way to distinguish our Salem High from the one over in Virginia Beach, but Salem-Salem might have been a harbinger of how the night would end.

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Tom McGohey

To paraphrase former President Eisenhower, “Beware the sports video board industrial complex.” The Cold War arms race of Ike’s time has devolved into the athletics arms race of college sports today.

George Orwell wrote that “serious sport is war minus the shooting.” And what could be more serious than replaying every pass, punt and punch on the chalked battlefield with state-of-the-art resolution designed to expedite a new phase in human evolution: increased RAM capacity of the retina.

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McGohey, retired in Newbern, taught composition and directed the Writing Center at Wake Forest University (ranked second in ACC stadium video boards).

Home-schooled students shouldn’t get a pass from the rules on participation in public school activities.

If every player were following a different set of rules, a football game wouldn’t be much fun for onlookers, and even less so for those on the field.

And yet some Virginia Republican lawmakers are determined to pressure public schools into bending their rules to score a few ideological points.

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