Hogan has good ideas on school safety

I am grateful to Republican U.S. Senate candidate, former Gov. Larry Hogan, for writing the commentary, “Larry Hogan: How we can keep students safe in their schools” (Sept. 19). As a longtime Maryland resident and mother of four, school-aged children, I am relieved to finally have a candidate who can keep our children safe. Just this month, another mother lost her young son to school gun violence in Maryland. Her pain demands that we take action.

Threatening society’s most precious resource — our children — is the greatest assault on our future. While many politicians and well-meaning citizens talk about making students safer, students continue to die from gun violence. They oversimplify this horrible problem. Hogan’s common-sense, firm approach acknowledges that solving a complex problem demands a complex answer — mental health or gun restrictions alone will not be enough. His plan, coupled with the ongoing effort to remove phones from schools, will keep our kids safe.

As governor, Hogan improved mental health care access, enacted red flag laws, acted on cyberbullying and employed and trained more school resource officers to ensure that students across the state were safe to learn. If elected to the Senate, he could do his for students across the entire country.

Mental health, school resource officers and gun control — along with addressing wider mental health crises through bell-to-bell phone restrictions — would be the proportional and thoughtful solution that our children desperately need. Hogan is the only one in this race with the bravery, wherewithal and strength of character to make this plan into a reality. He has proven over and over again that he does the right thing and solves pressing problems thoughtfully and effectively. This will be no exception.

— Andrea Wolf, Potomac

The day the British stormed what is now Baltimore Peninsula

I look forward to and very much enjoy Jacques Kelly’s commentaries on local Baltimore history and culture. I was surprised that his recent column, “Getting to know the Baltimore Peninsula” (Sept. 21), omitted mention of a key element of its history. Long before Under Armour, Sagamore Distillery and the Western Maryland Railroad, that same parcel on the middle branch of the Patapsco River played a vital role in saving Baltimore from destruction by British forces in 1814.

In anticipation of a British attack, two earthen defense works were constructed along the shoreline, Fort Covington and Battery Babcock, each armed with multiple heavy cannons. When 1,200 Royal Navy sailors and marines attempted a night amphibious attack on the rear of nearby Fort McHenry during the bombardment on Sept. 13, 1814, it was the defenders of Covington and Babcock who first detected their approach and opened fire, defeating the landing attempt.

The service of those forts and their defenders was commemorated by a modest monument, now being relocated to the Baltimore Peninsula shoreline near Sagamore Distillery and scheduled to be rededicated in October.

— Jerry Pech, Baltimore

What else don’t we know about Alsobrooks?

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks has been a tax cheat for almost a decade due to an “oversight” that was corrected only after she was caught (“Angela Alsobrooks says she didn’t know she was saving thousands from improper property tax breaks,” Sept. 22). And her representative attempts to justify this “oversight” by saying she didn’t get the break on her current home which cost more, implying that the state benefited by her forgoing the bigger breaks while (albeit fraudulently) benefiting from the smaller breaks. What else is Alsobrooks not telling us? And what else is she lying about?

— Randy Respess, Ellicott City

Protect our Second Amendment rights

In a recent letter to The Baltimore Sun, Welby Loane urges more gun control due to “schools under siege, a police force dwindling and random arguments turning to havoc” (“We need more gun control,” Sept. 23). Those are the same reasons every American of legal age should be locked and loaded, preserving the sanctity of their person and property. Loane then went right into the same ubiquitous claptrap about National Rifle Association influence over Congress and even suggests a gun-control requirement on the ballot. Why? That was already settled. It’s called the Second Amendment. To letter writer Loane, I respectfully submit, “You do you.”

— Sophia Montgomery, Perry Hall