EDITORIAL: Short takes on guns, ethics, pardons, porn and puppies

March 17--Most predictable story ever

On Monday, President Donald Trump officially announced his school safety plan, part of which involves equipping "highly trained" school personnel and "expert teachers" with firearms to respond to school shootings. Americans everywhere asked, "What could possibly go wrong?"

It took only 24 hours to answer that question. In Seaside, Calif., a reserve police officer named Dennis Alexander was teaching a high school class about gun safety. To show students how to check whether their guns were loaded, he pointed his semiautomatic handgun at the ceiling.

The weapon discharged, bringing debris down upon the classroom and causing a minor shrapnel injury to one student. It could have been far worse, but Alexander was placed on leave from his school and police jobs while the incident is investigated.

Teaching gun safety is a good idea, but not in schools. Teachers-as-Rambo is not a good idea.

No porn for welfare moms

In the Missouri Legislature, dumb ideas never go away. The House this week advanced House Bill 1443, by Rep. J. Eggleston, R-Maysville, which he's tried to pass twice before. It prohibits people who receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families from using their electronic benefits cards to obtain cash from ATM machines. ATMs already won't issue cash for food stamps.

Only 6,523 Missouri residents, single parents with 20,830 children, receive TANF benefits to buy medicine, shoes and clothing. A family allotment comes to a princely $223 a month.

Already, the benefits cards can't be used for liquor, tobacco, lottery tickets and the like. Eggleston wants to add pornography to the list. Apparently he thinks single moms buy a lot of porn. Hint: Rumor has it you can get it for free on the internet.

Dogs don't belong in overhead bins. Ever.

The hits just keep coming from United Airlines. An airline employee on a flight from Houston to New York improvised a rule requiring passenger Catalina Robledo to store her pet dog, brought aboard in a TSA-approved carrier, in an overhead compartment. Robledo and her daughter protested repeatedly. Airline rules say small pets should be allowed to remain underneath the seat in front of the passenger. The employee wouldn't be budged.

Upon landing four hours later, the dog was dead. Robledo's daughter, Sophia Ceballos, said the dog could be heard barking frantically during the flight, but flight attendants offered no assistance.

This is the same airline that arranged for a ticketed, 69-year-old passenger to be beaten and dragged from his seat last year to make room for another passenger.

Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., chose Wednesday to propose a ban on dog storage in airliner overhead bins. Wednesday was the day students across the country walked out of class to protest the Feb. 14 high school massacre in Florida. Kennedy will take a stand for dogs, but when it comes to legislation to halt gun massacres in schools, he takes a knee.

A righteous presidential pardon

We couldn't disagree more with President Donald Trump's decision last year to pardon former Maricopa County, Ariz., sheriff Joe Arpaio, who openly defied the law and engaged in racist law-enforcement tactics targeting Hispanics. A far better Trump move was his decision to pardon former Navy sailor Kristian Saucier, who worked on a nuclear submarine and was imprisoned for taking photographs inside classified sections of the vessel.

Saucier pleaded guilty in 2016 after taking what he described as keepsake photos of where he worked inside the USS Alexandria while it was stationed in Groton, Conn., in 2009. He served a year in prison before Trump ordered his release this month. Trump has tried to compare Saucier's case to that of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server to store government communications. Too bad he couldn't just allow Saucier's pardon to stand on its own merits and leave it at that.

Forest Park, now and forever

There's no question that St. Louisans love their Forest Park, and with more than 13 million visitors a year, the park is a bigger attraction than Busch Stadium and the Gateway Arch combined.

And yet the park's able caretakers -- the nonprofit Forest Park Forever -- are always trying to improve the 1,300 acres under their care. Their most recent fundraising campaign exceeded their goal, raising more than $139 million and ensuring a healthy endowment to care for the park moving forward.

The nonprofit's board, along with scores of donors and volunteers, deserve the city's gratitude for keeping Forest Park a place of pride.

Ethics shmethics

Could Gov. Eric Greitens possibly be just too busy to appoint members to the Missouri Ethics Commission, which fined him $1,000 last year for a campaign violation? The terms of three of the six commission members were set to expire Thursday, leaving the group without a quorum to act on complaints.

Greitens, confronting serious personal problems -- including a new ethics violation complaint -- has not appointed replacements. Unlike some other state boards and commissions, these commissioners are not allowed to continue serving when their terms expire. A spokesman said the governor is waiting for committees to recommend replacements.

It is unlikely an active commission could be in place to deal with complaints that might arise related to the upcoming April 3 municipal elections. They also won't be able to resolve current cases. The commission's executive director, James Klahr, said staff members will monitor election-related issues.

Monitoring is not the same as acting. Missourians deserve a governor who behaves as if ethics matter.

___

(c)2018 the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Visit the St. Louis Post-Dispatch at www.stltoday.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.