Opinion Roundup: Kids & guns; dating, GOP & Trump; payday lending; coal ash, and more

Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2018 -- A round up of opinion, commentary and analysis on: Protests and action on weapons, Trump dating site features child sex convict, is McHenry bill making it easier for payday lenders and more.

What Roy Cooper can do about guns in N.C. (Charlotte Observer) -- Waiting for Congress to respond to Florida shooting? There’s another path.

ADAM OWENS: 'This is not OK with me:' 350 gather to call for gun reform following Florida shooting (WRAL-TV analysis) -- Last week's shooting at a Florida high school is moving many Triangle mothers to action for the first time in the fight for gun reform.

LAURA LESLIE: NC lawmaker seeks option to take guns from potential threats (WRAL-TV analysis) -- A lawmaker and former judge wants to add North Carolina to the small number of states where a judge can order that firearms temporarily be taken from people deemed to be threats to the public.

LIZ SCHLEMMER: Moore To Create House Committee On School Safety (WUNC-FM analysis) – N.C. House Speaker Tim Moore is expected to form a new House committee on school safety. That comes days after a school shooting in Parkland, Florida, left 17 people dead. Rob Thompson, a spokesman for the youth advocacy organization N.C. Child, is looking forward to learning more about what the committee will do.

JEFF TIBERII: Rally Planned In Raleigh To Demand Gun Legislation (WUNC-FM analysis) -- A group plans to demand common sense gun legislation at the Raleigh office of U.S. Senator Thom Tillis on Tuesday morning. The rally comes less than a week after a mass shooting at a high school in Florida that killed 17 people.

CAMERON MCWHIRTER: Students to Ratchet Up Anti-Gun Protests (Wall Street Journal analysis) -- High-school students are planning marches and school walkouts nationwide, as their ranks grow on social media, galvanized by last week’s Florida school shooting that left 17 dead.

SCOTT CLEMENT & EMILY GUSKIN: Most Americans say Trump, Congress not doing enough to stop mass shootings (Washington Post analysis) -- A Washington Post-ABC News poll, conducted after a gunman killed 17 people at a Florida high school, illustrates the differences in the country over how to respond to gun violence and highlights the intense frustration with the lack of any policy response coming out of Washington, despite a series of horrific shootings in recent years.

SHEERA FRENKEL & DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI: Russian Bots Moved Quickly to Exploit the Florida Shooting (New York Times analysis) -- Before the world had even absorbed the reality of the school shooting in Florida, hundreds of Twitter accounts thought to have Russian ties jumped into the gun control debate.

JAY HANIG: I own an AR-15. Here’s my solution on mass shootings (Wilmington Star-News column) -- I cringe every time there is a mass shooting in this country, not just for the obvious reason, but because I know I will be obligated to defend myself as if I had shot those people. Why? Because I own an AR-15. I bought mine leading up to Congress’s 1994 assault-rifle ban, minus the flash hider so its sale was legal. I purchased it online: sent them my money and they shipped the rifle to my local gun store, where I paid the owner to submit my name through the government’s background

CHRISTINE YARED: Don’t Let My Classmates’ Deaths Be in Vain (New York Times column) -- I am a freshman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. In the days since the attack that killed 17 people here, I have continued replaying those terrifying moments in my head.

Man featured on 'Trump Dating' site has child sex conviction (AP news analysis) -- A North Carolina man with a felony conviction for indecent liberties with a child was one-half of the poster couple for a new "Trump Dating" website.

TRAVIS FAIN: NC couple pitching dating site for Trump supporters WRAK-TV analysis) -- Their smiling faces greet pro-Trump daters, but one has a disturbing criminal record -- a felony conviction for taking indecent liberties with a child.

MARK BARRETT: Critics say McHenry bill will revive payday lending in N.C.; he disagrees (Asheville Citizen-Times analysis) -- Consumer advocates say a bill passed by the U.S. House will bring those problems back to North Carolina, reversing a years-long effort to rid the state of lending companies that make short-term loans essentially secured by the borrower's paycheck. But bill sponsor Rep. Patrick McHenry, a Lincoln County Republican whose district includes Asheville, says that's just not true.

MARK HIBBS: Officials Say Passenger Ferry Will Boost Tourism (Coastal Review analysis) -- The state’s first passenger-only ferry under construction near Swansboro is part of a plan to boost Ocracoke Island tourism, which has flagged as a result of long waits and travel times for vehicle ferries from Hatteras.

DEREK LACEY: Meadows talks immigration at Tri-Hishtil (Hendersonville Times-News) -- U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows made several stops in Henderson County and the district Monday, starting off at Mills River plant grafting and greenhouse operation Tri-Hishtil.

NC to honor Coast Guard captain who was born a slave (AP news analysis) -- The state Transportation Department will dedicate a bridge along the Outer Banks to a U.S. Coast Guard captain who went from being a slave to the first African-American to command a life-saving station.

Yes, Mr. President, it needs to be said (Greensboro News & Record) -- When President Donald Trump finally spoke out against domestic violence — more than a week into the furor over the now former White House staff secretary Rob Porter — he did so grudgingly.

JIM MORRILL: NC congressman accuses his GOP opponent of trying to ‘stop Trump’ (Charlotte Observer analysis) -- In a new TV ad, Rep. Robert Pittenger cast himself as one of President Donald Trump’s “strongest supporters” and accuses Mark Harris of trying to “stop Trump” in 2016.

LIZ BELL: N.C. State’s acclaimed principal program assesses candidate character (EdNC analysis) -- The North Carolina State University Principal Preparation Candidate program looks for “candidates who show compassion, kindness, and professionalism to everyone they meet and not just the evaluators,” according to the rubric. Program Director Bonnie Fusarelli put it this way: “What we’re really looking for are some of these soft skills, because there’s a lot of skills that we can teach, but there’s a lot of basic ‘who you are’ that we really are trying to select for.”

HELEN LADD & JOHN SINGLETON: Fiscal externalities of charter schools:, evidence from N.C. (EdNC analysis) -- We find a large and negative fiscal impact from $500-$700 per pupil in our one urban school district and somewhat smaller, but still significant, fiscal externalities on the non-urban districts in our sample.

TAYLOR KNOPF: A Day on Capitol Hill, Through a Rural Health Lens (N.C. Health News analysis) -- Against a background of ongoing budget debates in Washington, advocates make the rounds on Capitol Hill, looking for support for rural health centers and hospitals.

Fighting Alzheimer’s (Winston-Salem Journal) -- A group of bipartisan senators, including Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Caroilna, recently sent a letter to President Trump requesting an increase in funding for Alzheimer’s research in his 2019 budget request. This is a worthy cause.

JIM ROBBINS: Animals Are Losing Their Vagility, or Ability to Roam Freely(New York Times analysis) -- There has been exponential growth in data on wildlife movement as technology has evolved, opening new windows into the secret lives of animals. “We used to have one dot on a map twice a day,” said Roland Kays, a biologist at North Carolina State University who participated in the study. “Now we have a point as much as every second and know exactly where they are going, how they are avoiding people, how they are crossing the road and catching prey. It’s big for determining how animals die or where they die and how that affects populations.”

MICHAEL GEBELEIN: Duke coal ash basin closures raise concerns as plans change (Carolina Public Press analysis) -- Environmental and civil rights advocacy groups warn that proposed changes to Duke Energy’s plans for closing several of its coal ash basins could threaten water quality.

Large turnout needed at offshore-drilling hearing in Raleigh (Wilmington Star-News) -- Monday’s meeting may be one last chance to stop an overly risky proposal

Lydia Ratcliff, Writer Who Found a Farmer’s Calling, Dies at 84 (New York Times obit) -- Lydia Ratcliff toiled in anonymity as a ghostwriter for the personal finance columnist Sylvia Porter until 1965, when she surprised everyone and left the world of Manhattan publishing for a small farm in Vermont. She had no intention of farming, however; she worked instead on a book with Porter for the next few years. But along the way, she accumulated goats, pigs, sheep and a cow. Ratcliff attended the Putney School in Vermont and Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania; when her family moved to Italy, she spent her junior year in Paris at the Sorbonne. She finished college at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.