Scare tactics

The incident at Sandy Hook Elementary school is indeed a tragedy, but it brought to mind the comparison of two events in my life.

When my children were born, your newspaper had a policy of printing new births at both hospitals in Hays. It was an accepted policy and allowed for people to check the newspaper if they knew someone was "getting close." It was also a tool used by door-to-door salesmen peddling heat and smoke detectors. We went so far as to set up an appointment with the man, he wasn't having a lot of success with his sales pitch and proceeded to pull out a book of small children that were burned because they did not have the protection in place that he happened to sell. I immediately got up and opened the door and invited him to leave promptly.

My feeling was that using small children who had undergone a tragedy in their lives to sell his product was akin to scare tactics. I watched with the same degree of disdain watching the VP and the president on the stage with the small children. I'm just sorry I wasn't present to "show them the door."

Harvey Jansonius

Hays