This Week in Comments: Gun control, BP, Wabash Station

Every week, readers of ColumbiaMissourian.com offer their opinions on the news and the Missouri's coverage of it. Here we offer you a digest of some of the conversations we found most interesting. Click any of the links to join in.

COLUMN: Instead of outlawing guns, keep guns away from outlaws

Comments: 12/Commenters: 7

J. Karl Miller's column on the recent Supreme Court ruling regarding gun ownership generated quite a few comments.

Don Milsop talks about how the Founding Fathers intended the 2nd Amendment to be an individual right. Tim Dance says "this issue rears it's head every election cycle." Ellis Smith says that "guns may be the specific issue, but there's more at stake than either guns or gun ownership."

Engulfed: Veteran Gulf fisherman hanging it up for BP oil cleanup work

Comments: 5/Commenters: 4

Missourian assistant city editor Matt Pearce has traveled to the Gulf coast to report on the effects of the oil spill. Pearce talked to George Barisich, president of the United Commercial Fisherman's Association, who will be training to become an oil cleanup worker.    

Ellis Smith says that "it is too soon to say that 'it's over' in terms of leakage from or around the initially-drilled well. However, the network news treatment I've seen (TV) has made that pretty clear." Smith goes on to say that he is concerned about parallels between the oil spill and the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. "What we 'learned' from Three Mile Island was to stop building nuclear power plants, a tragic error in retrospect, and one which has contributed to megatons of carbon dioxide emissions from electric power generation plants fueled with coal, fuel oil and/or natural gas."

"Are we now going to 'learn' that we mustn't drill for oil except on dry land?"

Wabash Station celebrates 100 years of service

Comments: 1/Commenters: 1

On Friday, Wabash Station marked its centennial. Reader Nancy Truesdell Coonrod left a comment describing her memories of the Wabash Railroad.

Nancy Truesdell Coonrod recalls a time when her father, a ticket agent for the Wabash Railroad in Centralia, arranged for her kindergarten class to ride the rails from Centralia to Columbia. "I also have fond memories of watching the glamorous Stephens girls board the Wabash trains with their luggage, hats, and gloves to travel to Stepehens College in Columbia," says Coonrod.