Just Sayin': Bill takes a shot at child support

The State Legislature is considering the most anti-child, anti-family bill I could imagine. The proposed law would prevent a court from sentencing someone to jail for not paying child support.

I have practiced matrimonial and family law on Long Island for over 40 years. When a parent stops paying child support, children and families suffer. Experience shows that often the only way a parent will pay child support arrears is when jail is a possibility.

Laws already provide safeguards to parents who have fallen on hard times and can’t afford to pay all the required support on due dates.

Judges rarely incarcerate except in severe cases that warrant such punishment. But when they do and give the parent time to pay before incarceration, most somehow find the money to stay out of jail.

Current laws that allow a judge to sentence a parent to jail also provide a meaningful incentive for compliance with the obligation to pay child support.

The Legislature should enact stronger laws to enforce child support, not cast the needs of our children aside in a misguided crusade to prevent effective punishment for the unforgivable “crime” of financially abandoning a family.

 — Robert A. Cohen, Smithtown

Don’t leave carts in disabled parking spots

Lately, I’ve seen more and more of a disturbing problem.

People unload their shopping cart and, if they are parked next to a spot for disabled people, they put their empty cart in the middle of the disabled person’s parking space. No car can get in there without someone first moving that cart.

With so few spots available and more seniors and others in need of these spots, this is quite selfish.

These people, who are not disabled, can walk a few extra steps and put the cart someplace else.

Someday, they might need these spots themselves. Will they be available?

 — Barbara Diamond Obstgarten, Port Jefferson Station

It’s unsafe, but allow kids to have rifles

It should be noted that many people teach gun safety to children at a very young age so they can hunt with them [“In Missouri, children can carry guns, too,” Just Sayin’, Feb. 25]. This is especially true in rural areas.

Although small children would be safer not carrying them, there’s no minimum age to possess a rifle or ammunition for it.

Despite a few exceptions, however, federal law prohibits anyone under the age of 18 from possessing a handgun.

Kids can be allowed to physically change their gender by getting hormonal treatments as young teens. But children shouldn’t be allowed to have a rifle?

 — Samuel J. Mark, West Hempstead