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Messages written by a group of Plant High School seniors in Tampa adorn the sidewalk leading to their school. ‘In addition to thoughts and prayers, action and policy need to take order,’ says senior Catarina Sterlacci.James Borchuck

Letters to the Editor should be exclusive to The Globe and Mail. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Try to keep letters to fewer than 150 words. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. To submit a letter by e-mail, click here: letters@globeandmail.com

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Senseless slaughter

Until a couple of months ago, the United States was considering holding its athletes back from the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, because of a perceived threat from North Korean "terrorism."

Now, while the athletes enjoy their safety, we see 17 Americans tragically slain in yet another high-school shooting that might have been prevented by sensible gun laws (Slaughter In Florida School As Gunman Stalks Hallways, Feb. 15).

Sadly, it reminds one of the slogan: "We have met the enemy and they are ours." When will U.S. politicians come to their senses and recognize the real security battle that they need to fight on behalf of their citizens?

Tom MacDonald, Ottawa

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Sometimes the road map is already there for us to see.

We know that blindly treating patient after patient infected with E. coli is an awfully inefficient public health intervention. It's far better to go to the source of the problem, where there are far fewer variables, and shut down the contaminated water supply.

The United States has a few dozen major firearms manufacturers, tens of millions of gun owners, hundreds of millions of guns, and tens of millions of citizens suffering from a mental illness.

Going upstream to change the behaviour of a few chief executive officers in the gun industry would seem the efficient course. Unlike E. coli, however, the gun industry's aggressive lobby pushes U.S. politicians toward ineffective interventions. And that, I suppose, is the point.

Eric LeGresley, Ottawa

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It's so sad but so true – there are no easy answers to gun violence in America. However, there is undeniable evidence that restriction of access to firearms and large capacity magazines is a means of risk reduction.

Australia, even Canada, has shown this. Maybe it's time Canada treat the epidemic south of our border as a humanitarian crisis and threaten sanctions if Americans don't clean up their policy act.

I'm not sure if the costs to the United States would equal the financial input of the National Rifle Association lobby, but maybe it's worth a "shot?" Can we really stand by and not do anything?

After all, kids in the United States are just as precious as kids elsewhere.

Natalie L. Yanchar, MD, president of the Trauma Association of Canada, Calgary

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Passing off the problem

No statistic is perfect (The Catholic Funding Debate Needs To Be Schooled By Facts, Feb. 15). Some statistics can be misleading, including those purporting to measure school quality. Standardized test scores mostly measure who the students are (family income, parental education, learning challenges and so on) rather than the quality of the school. The efforts to account for differences in student demographics are seriously flawed. One of the major flaws is that the comparisons don't account for the effect of low-performing students in Catholic schools who transfer to public ones.

This activity has never been formally studied. Nonetheless there have been persistent anecdotal reports for more than a decade that Catholic school teachers "encourage" parents of students struggling with learning difficulties or behavioural challenges to "try" public schools.

But this advice, whether based on a student's needs or simply to get a difficult child out of the school, has a two-fold effect on school populations. Public schools end up with more students who would score poorly on tests regardless of the school; some parents who believe the flawed school rankings enroll their academically successful child in the local Catholic school. The result is that the student populations in public and Catholic schools in the same neighbourhood can be different enough to seriously skew school rankings.

It is completely rational for Catholic schools, along with private schools, to make efforts to have only the best students. It makes life easier on the school staff and makes the school look good.

But it doesn't make the school better. Students of all abilities thrive in public schools, and they benefit greatly from having classmates who have a wide range of gifts and challenges.

Howard Goodman, former Toronto District School Board trustee, Toronto

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Catholic school success is not just a function of a self-selecting student body. It's also because Catholic school administrators are loath to tolerate problem students.

After spending a decade working in the public education system, it seems to me that just 1 or 2 per cent of the students pose huge disciplinary issues, yet conversations I've had suggest that Catholic school administrators do their utmost to ensure that problematic students stay sequestered in the public system, which in turn makes the public system much more difficult to manage.

As such, Catholic boards constitute a publicly-funded private school system, which is one reason they do better academically. The provincial government must adopt a two-pronged approach. First, end Catholic school funding. And second, increase public school funding for social work and clinical psychology to ensure the success of all students, particularly the difficult ones.

A higher level of "secular" discipline would round this out, and would allow public schools to demonstrate that they can compete equally with Catholic schools.

Dale Armstrong, London, Ont.

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Evidence first

Jan Hux, president of Diabetes Canada, was critical of the NZIER report assessing the evidence on taxation of sugar-sweetened beverages (Hooked On Pop, Feb. 16). As a co-author of the report, I would like to point out that NZIER was commissioned to review the evidence on taxation of sugar-sweetened beverages. Where evidence did not exist, it could not be assessed.

Ms. Hux pointed out that sugary drink consumption is directly associated with higher risk of Type 2 diabetes. This may be true, but it does not imply that a tax will be effective in reducing the incidence or prevalence of diabetes. Indeed, we found no evidence that incidence or prevalence of diabetes had decreased, or increased at a lower rate, in jurisdictions that had implemented a sugar tax.

This is not a "flaw" in our report but an example of evidence that is lacking.

The other effects Ms. Hux points to were also not "overlooked" or "underestimated" as she claims. If there had been any evidence of these effects in the published literature, it would have been reported. It is important to note that a lack of evidence does not indicate a lack of effect.

However, responsible public policy is generally backed by evidence, not speculation.

In our opinion, Ms. Hux's assertions about the quality of NZIER's work are unwarranted and reflect a lack of understanding of the sugar tax evidence and of what an evidence review involves.

Sarah Hogan, senior economist, New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER), Wellington, New Zealand

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