Questions answered by Lamar Paris, County Commissioner
Q. I heard that the U.S. Census Bureau is hiring people. How do we find out about this?
A. We had a visit from Wayne Roshaven and Greg Mitts with the Census Bureau last week and they told us they are in need of people to work in this area. You may qualify if: you are a U.S. citizen, you are a legal permanent resident, or non-citizen with an appropriate work visa, you are at least 18 years old, you have a valid Social Security number, you take a written test of basic skills, you have a valid driver’s license, you pass a background check, and you commit to four days of training. If you are interested please call this number, 1-866-861-2010. You will have to take an application test which is administered each week at different locations in the area. The test is a 30-minute basic skills test consisting of 28 multiple-choice questions measuring knowledge, skills, and abilities required to perform a variety of census jobs.
Be a part of the 2010 Census Team! Earn good pay, get paid weekly, work flexible hours, receive paid training, receive reimbursement for authorized mileage and other work-related expenses. Most of all, help your community have a successful 2010 Census!
Q. Are you still receiving comments about the concealed gun carry legislation?
A. Yes and I will reprint a couple of those comments below and each have their important points.
Comment #1 - The argument that licensed gun toters are always law abiding citizens is being proven wrong in many instances. In addition they are rarely well trained in gun safety or how to react in a deadly force situation. I certainly do not want to be the innocent bystander taken down in a park or other public area by someone who fancies himself as another Wyatt Earp. Furthermore, I don't want to become a statistic in a shootout over a domestic situation or between two parents at a ballgame.
Our law enforcement officers are trained to handle deadly force situations, particularly in public places. Citizens do not need to take the law into their own hands, nor do they need to be equipped to bring deadly force to a fight. Law Enforcement has a difficult enough job as it is. Continuing to relax gun laws only makes the law enforcement job more difficult and dangerous.
Comment #2 “You are thinking about this county, as you should, in relation to the new laws proposed for the concealed carry permit. What you fail to realize is not every county, not every city is as safe as Blairsville and Union County. If I travel to Atlanta to the airport, I do not want to leave my weapon here at my home. If I go to a public event at some park in Gainesville, I do not want to leave my weapon where it is of no value to me if there is trouble. The only way a concealed weapon is of value is if you have it when it is needed. To constantly take it off, to constantly have to worry if you are violating some local ordinance and could be charged with a felony or misdemeanor keeps many people like me from even carrying a weapon at all.”
I will print some more comments next week in this column. As usual, there are two sides to every story and I have certainly enjoyed hearing both sides. I would like to caution people, when contacting your Legislators, please remember to be respectful in your writing. They have a tough job to do at best and the nicer and more respectful we can be in our comments only serve to give your comments more clout.
Q. Why did you question the right for the authors of the three bills on concealed gun carry to be allowed to present them. Just because you are interested in other issues does not mean that these are less important.
A. My concern with the legislation (HB 615, SB 291,308) was that it did not all seem to be real meaningful legislation to correct real problems as much as it seemed to be simply trying to expand concealed gun carry laws past what was common sense in a civilized society and could even be expensive for counties to administer.
However, after two weeks of receiving emails and public comments from both sides, I am going to arrange an informal committee to discuss this further and try to determine if there are in fact reasonable changes to the law that are needed. While I see this issue from a completely different perspective, I have not been persuaded by anyone that we need weapons at our youth sporting events, unless it is by highly qualified and certified people trained in “deadly force” use of weapons.
Summary
After recently returning from three days around the Georgia Legislature and the Capitol, there are now over 1500 pieces of legislation that are pending. We must count on the leadership of the Senate by Lt. Governor Casey Cagle and the Speaker of the House, Rep. David Ralston, to guide the movement of responsible legislation, and discard that without merit. I am hopeful that this will be a successful and productive session for all Georgians.
It goes without saying that you can not carry any type of weapon into our State Capitol, so why would some of these same legislators agree weapons should be carried into local county government administrative offices.
Weapons are also not allowed into any college or professional sporting event in the nation, but some want to carry them to youth ballgames. Again, common sense should be involved in any decision we make.