You probably don't remember Lewiston either
Henke back writing outdoors column for Washington County weeklies
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When 18 people were gunned down in Lewiston, Maine last October we did what we always do.
We went about our business.
Just another day in America.
I suspect most of us don't even remember the details of how an Army reservist and firearms instructor with deteriorating mental health shot up a bowling alley and adjoining bar and grille with a rifle and laser scope before escaping.
He was found dead several days later from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
What was worse was that it was all preventable, but most of us probably weren't aware of that either.
The Maine State Police released its final report earlier this month concluding that authorities on multiple levels had failed to do enough to prevent the tragedy.
"At its core, this tragedy was caused by a colossal failure of human judgment by several people, on several occasions; a profound negligence that—as the Commission rightly stated—was an abdication of responsibility," Maine Gov. Janet Mills said. "As I have said in the past, understanding the facts and circumstances of this tragedy is a cornerstone of healing. Another cornerstone is accountability."
The Sagadahoc County Sheriff's Office was aware of the shooter's deteriorating mental state and had probable cause to use Maine's yellow flag law to secure the gunman's firearms just a month before the shooting, but it did nothing.
The leaders of the shooter's U.S. Army Reserve unit ignored recommendations by the shooter's mental health providers to ensure weapons were removed from his home. His commanding officer also did not share with the sheriff's office the totality of the information about the shooter's troubling behavior.
What the report does not answer is why?
Was it concerns about violating Second Amendment rights or sheer ineptitude?
Why professionals in the U.S. Army and county sheriff's office did nothing.
Instead, 18 people died.
Since then, there has been a huge jump in law enforcement requests for Maine courts to seize guns from people deemed a danger to themselves and others.
“It is clear that, following last year’s tragedy, more and more law enforcement officers across the state are taking this law seriously, have taken state-provided training on its use, and are now using it on a daily basis to remove firearms from those who should not have them,” Gov. Mills said.
It just took the death of 18 people for law enforcement to take it serious.
This past week, the latest school shooting occurred in Georgia where in a mind-boggling series of events, a 14-year-old child brought an AR-15 to school and killed two classmates and two teachers.
How does a 14-year-old get an AR-15?
His father bought it for him for Christmas.
Georgia officials then rightfully charged the father as an accessory in the shooting.
Ultimately, whether you are a struggling parent or a member of law enforcement, both seem to have a blind spot when it comes to owning firearms.
Two weeks from now, you won't remember the Lewiston shooting or the Georgia shooting.
That's just the world we live in these days.
Salem Press
Anyone who lives in a small community knows it comes with an identity and commitment to that community.
So it was heartening to see that Darren Johnson has brought back the The Salem Press to the little community of Salem in Washington County.
Johnson, who also publishes The Greenwich Journal, has managed to keep local journalism alive in his weekly newspapers.
"Thanks to Darren Johnson and many others who understand the need and value of our local newspapers!!," Salem Supervisor Evera Sue Clary wrote on Facebook this week about the debut of The Salem Press.
And Henke's back
Perhaps the best hire I ever made at The Post-Star came in sports when I hired a retired DEC officer named Bob Henke to write an outdoors column after our long-time columnist Bill Roden passed away.
While I constantly bugged him to shorten his columns, Henke became a staple in our Sunday sports section for three decades until cutbacks forced him to take a hiatus. I told Bob at the time he had a home at The Front Page if he wanted to write.
So it was especially gratifying to see Henke's column will return in The Greenwich Journal.
I suspect, the demand for the weekly paper will increase substantially.
Big donation
For the past eight months, our holiday decorating committee at the Chapman Museum as well as the Upstate Model Railroaders has been working on project to enhance the holiday experience at the Chapman's DeLong House.
Many of you have donated to the effort, but we were a little short of the needed monies for the trolley diorama until this week when the Sandy Hill Foundation came through with a donation to put us over the top.
Thanks to all of you who have donated to the cause.
Now, we just have to deliver. That should be the fun part.
You can still deliver by going to the Chapman Museum’s donation page and stipulating what the donation is for.
Health care and abortion
When I first became editor of The Post-Star in 1999, Publisher Jim Marshall gave me one rule about editorials. He said he didn't want us ever to write about abortion on our editorial page.
I don't think we ever did.
As a man, I've often felt it wasn't right for me even to weigh in on the matter. Each individual woman should make her own decision.
But here is something to consider. On Oct. 1, a Louisiana law will go into effect that reclassifies the drug misoprostol as a "controlled dangerous substance."
And while the drug has been used for abortions, it is also used in emergencies to treat postpartum hemorrhage and is on the World Health Organization's list of essential medications.
That means that Louisiana hospitals will no longer have the drug available on obstetric hemorrhage carts.
“Take it off the carts?” one doctor said to Lorena O’Neil of the Louisiana Illuminator. “That’s death. That’s a matter of life or death.”
That's a sobering thought.
Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and is currently adapting his second book "The Last American Newspaper" into a play. He currently lives in Queensbury, N.Y.
There is no recourse to right these wrongs except the ballot, and to persist in resisting the actions of this minority of zealots.
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” - Frederick Douglass
I can’t even think of a comment on these senseless acts of violence. Who in their right mind buys an AR-15 as a Christmas gift for a kid…peace on earth, eh?