editorial “The victims of the 28 The QUEE NS Courier • JUNE 16, 2016 for breaking news visit www.qns.com NO MORE BLOODSHED ON OUR LAND! The “mindless menace of violence” that Senator Robert F. Kennedy spoke of 48 years ago continues THE QUEENS Publisher & E ditor Co-Publisher Associate Publisher Editor-In-Chief VP, Events, Web & Social Media Art Director Assistant Art Director Artists Staff Reporters Digital Editor Contributing Reporters Events Coordinator Assistant to Publisher Classified Manager Controller President & CEO Vice President Victoria Schneps-Yunis Joshua A. Schneps Bob Brennan Robert Pozarycki Amy Amato-Sanchez Nirmal Singh Stephen Reina Ron Torina, Jonathan Rodriguez, Cheryl Gallagher Katrina Medoff, Anthony Giudice, Angela Matua Brianna Ellis Katarina Hybenova Cliff Kasden, Samantha Sohmer, Elizabeth Aloni Jaclyn Hertling Deborah Cusick Celeste Alamin Maria Valencia Victoria Schneps-Yunis Joshua A. Schneps Schneps Communications, 38-15 Bell Blvd., Bayside, NY 11361 718-224-5863 • Fax 718-224-5441 www.qns.com editorial e-mail: editorial@qns.com for advertising e-mail: ads@qns.com Entire Contents Copyright 2016 by The Queens Courier All letters sent to THE QUEENS COURIER should be brief and are subject to condensing. Writers should include a full address and home and office telephone numbers, where available, as well as affiliation, indicating special interest. Anonymous letters are not printed. Name withheld on request. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, AS WELL AS OP-ED PIECES IN NO WAY REFLECT THE PAPER’S POSITION. No such ad or any part thereof may be reproduced without prior permission of THE QUEENS COURIER. The publishers will not be responsible for any error in advertising beyond the cost of the space occupied by the error. Errors must be reported to THE QUEENS COURIER within five days of publication. Ad position cannot be guaranteed unless paid prior to publication. Schneps Communications assumes no liability for the content or reply to any ads. The advertiser assumes all liability for the content of and all replies. The advertiser agrees to hold The Quens Courier and its employees harmless from all cost, expenses, liabilities, and damages resulting from or caused by the publication or recording placed by the advertiser or any reply to any such advertisement. violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no mater where he lives or what he does - can be certain who next will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours. Why? The Queens Courier and the Mayor’s Office are proud to present a weekly column in which Mayor Bill de Blasio answers your questions about issues that concern you the most. If you have a question about anything going on in the city, in your neighborhood or on your block, we want to hear from you! Email us at editorial@ qns. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, April 5, 1968 Ask the MAYOR com and Mayor de Blasio will get you an answer! What is the city planning to do to a d d r e s s s c h o o l o v e r - crowding in School District 24 and in other areas of Queens? We are continuing to work closely with CECs, families, community members and elected officials to identify suitable locations for new school sites across the city that will help alleviate overcrowding. The March amendment to the Capital Plan provides an additional $1.4 billion in funding, which supports the creation of more than 44,000 seats in overcrowded areas across the city, bringing funding for new capacity to $4.5 billion in spending. In Queens, the Capital Plan includes funding for more than 18,200 news seats, including 35 projects across the borough that will c r e a t e 1 5 , 4 0 0 P.S./I.S. seats and 2,800 high s c h o o l seats over the next five years, of which 2,300 will open in five buildings this fall. We have made significant progress over the past two years, with nearly 2,700 new seats opening in six buildings in 2014 and 3,900 seats opening in seven buildings in 2015. Additionally, we opened 1,500 new pre-K seats in 11 buildings last year and are expected to open an additional 221 pre-K seats this year. to stain our land in 2016. The latest reprehensible act took place at a gay nightclub in Orlando on Sunday, where 49 people were cut down by a terrorist lunatic. Our enemies couldn’t have done a better job than we have at killing our own people in mass numbers and leaving the rest of us in a perpetual state of fear, wondering where and when the next bloody, bullet-ridden bodies will drop. We are a state under siege, and it’s our own creation. This all could be stopped with proper gun regulations that too many politicians — bought off by powerful lobbyists invested in weapons proliferation — refuse to even consider, let alone adopt. How else can one explain how the AR-15, the weapon used to slaughter 20 children in Connecticut four years ago and the 49 people in Orlando on Sunday, remains so easily available to any American? The AR-15 is a military-grade death machine, designed expressly for the intent of murdering as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. There is no logical purpose of using an AR-15 for sport; it will make chopped meat out of the target. There is no logical purpose of using an AR-15 for defending a family or oneself from a midnight burglar. What would the Founding Fathers of this nation think of our federal government standing by and doing nothing while allowing anyone — regardless of mental state, regardless of criminal background, regardless of possible terrorist ties — to acquire the AR-15 and similar machine guns so easily? The Second Amendment was authored in the era of the musket, a primitive rifle that took long moments to load, fire, reload and re-fire. The concept of a gun firing 30 rounds in a couple of seconds was unimaginable at that time. The Founding Fathers would never have tolerated the kind of violence in America that we experience today, deploring any politician who would choose to hide behind the Second Amendment whenever confronted with gun violence and the calls for stricter gun laws that follow any act of mass murder in this nation. Enough! At long last, enough! It’s time to take a stand! H o u s e Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, both Republicans and staunch supporters of gun lobbyists, control the direction of debate in Congress. They will refuse any meaningful gun regulations as long as we, the people, stay silent. We urge our readers to contact them both: Call the speaker’s office at 202-225-0600 or leave a message at his website, http://www.speaker.gov/ contact. Call the Senate majority leader’s office at 202-224-2541 or leave a message at his website, https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index. cfm/contactform. Tell Ryan and McConnell to stand up to the lobbyists and stand up for the American people by supporting real gun regulations that keeps machines of mass death out of the wrong hands. Thoughts and prayers alone will not stop the bloodshed. God helps those who help themselves. Ask Australia, which instituted strict gun regulations following a series of mass murders 20 years ago that have lowered gun-related deaths dramatically. We helped create this mindless menace of violence staining our land; we are the only ones who can stop it.
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