Fading gun support

Because assault-type weapons hadn’t been invented back when our Founding Fathers wrote the Second Amendment, how do these gun nuts think making them illegal is an assault (excuse the pun) on their precious Second Amendment?

There is no logical reason anyone who isn’t fighting in a war should own assault weapons. National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre contends the overwhelming majority of Americans support the Second Amendment.

I seriously doubt that in light of the Newtown, Conn., tragedy.

Diane Capps

Kansas City

Teachers and guns

Many gun advocates argue now that teachers should be armed. Really?

Can you imagine an elementary school teacher carrying a gun in school? A first-grade teacher? A kindergarten teacher?

Talk about liability. I’ve volunteered at school, and I’m amazed at how well-organized these classrooms are.

With one adult and 20 to 30 little ones, it can be organized chaos. Imagine a loaded gun in the room.

Does the teacher have it on his or her person? In a purse nearby? Is it locked in a desk? Does it have a trigger lock? How accessible is it should some sick shooter burst in? How long until someone gets hurt?

Kids are inquisitive. They get into things they shouldn’t.

We already have more than a hundred children die each year and more than a thousand hospitalized by gun accidents at home. We need that at school, too?

A trained, armed guard at school could make sense, but arming teachers?

Please.

John Stark

Overland Park

Ever since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, we started putting armed air marshals on flights, and we haven’t had any serious problems with the passengers unaware of the identity of the air marshals.

I think it’s time to do the same thing with our schools, whether with teachers who were veterans or other individuals who take the required training. Then we would have people in schools who upon hearing the first shot or someone trying to break in, could neutralize the situation before it could escalate.

Mike Crosbie

Leawood

First-graders and guns

Missouri senators are considering a bill requiring first-graders take a National Rifle Association gun-safety program (1-30, A4, “Bill would require gun-safety lesson in first grade”).

I understand the purpose is to promote gun awareness and teach how to react when exposed to a firearm, but I think that the course would be instituted in too young an age group.

The need for education in gun awareness is in the junior high age group.

Those are kids who will be in high school in a few years and confronted with new groups of people and put into new situations.

At worst, the course should be taught to both first-graders and junior high students.

Ryan Blickhan

Kansas City

Two black senators

Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts has just appointed William Cowan to be the new senator from his state on an interim basis (1-31, A2, “Senate seat”). Democrat Sen. Cowan happens to be black.

The question now is whether he will be insulted and demeaned as a “token” selection by liberal organizations and pundits as was the black Republican senator recently appointed from South Carolina.

Jim O’Connell

Shawnee

Women in combat

On Kathleen Parker’s column, “Just what have they been smoking in the Pentagon?” on women in combat, she makes a credible argument when she discusses male-female differences in strength. However, her argument is less compelling when she discusses the “special tortures” that may occur when women are captured.

Women are most at risk of sexual assault from males in their own branch of the military.

In 2010, the Pentagon said there had been 3,158 sexual assaults reported, but their own estimates place the actual number at 19,000 each year.

Military women and their families should be pressuring the Pentagon to effectively address that problem in the military culture before we deny women the opportunity to serve in direct combat.

Marcia Brox

Shawnee

McClanahan column

E. Thomas McClanahan, in his Jan. 27 column, “Ignore those people in the back and party on!” depicted President Barack Obama, after his inaugural address, as recklessly driving a bus that is certain to crash.

Interestingly, McClanahan ignores the fact that on the president’s first trip, he skillfully steered the bus around a full-blown depression and back on the road to recovery.

If the bus does crash, it may not be because of a reckless driver.

The route the president is forced to take would be perilous enough even if the opposition did not place speed bumps and other obstructions in the road.

And when a prominent leader of Congress, Sen. Mitch McConnell, says job one is to make Obama a one-term president, that is not just a speed bump, that’s a land mine. Another senator, Jim DeMint, predicted a defeat of Obamacare would be Obama’s Waterloo — another land mine.

It has been hard for McClanahan to take, but we, the people, have chosen our driver, and the bus McClanahan considers doomed is the only bus leaving the station.

Larry Hoffman

Excelsior Springs

Hypocrisy in Senate

I’m glad to see Sen. John Kerry’s nomination as secretary of state go through without a fight, but the handling reeks of hypocrisy. Once you are a good ol’ boy, you can be forgiven all previous transgressions.

Sen. John McCain has forgotten how outraged he was about Kerry’s Vietnam comments. His early, winking reference depicted the worst in our Congress.

Unfortunately for Susan Rice, she was not a senator first.

Bob Hishaw

Kansas City

High-income earners

With all the complaints about those earning more than $250,000 a year being taxed to death, I’d like to know what percentage of those earning over that amount actually pay the highest tax rate. Any who do probably don’t pay an accountant.

Shaun Q. McMahon

Westwood

Veteran’s hospital bill

This is my first email to anyone on this subject.

Perhaps someone can help or point me in the right direction.

I will give a quick recap of my problem.

My wife’s son is a 100 percent disabled veteran.

A few months ago, he had a seizure and required an ambulance to transport him to a hospital. He was in the hospital overnight.

For some reason, the VA did not cover this hospital stay and sent us a bill for more than $96,000.

Because we have no private insurance, it reduced it to $22,000.

It has yet to provide an itemized bill.

How can 12 hours in a regular hospital room cost $96,000?

Curt Hutson

Olathe