Readers react to gun culture, Trump, public mandate, drug costs, KCI
U.S. gun culture
Today, in our Wild West world of guns, each and every police officer has to assume that everyone has a loaded gun. If a policeman stops someone on the street, he has to think that person is packing heat.
An officer walking up to a car on a road must think, “Everyone has a loaded gun.” That is a fact of our current gun culture. It is very sad that we call ourselves civilized and then allow anybody to carry a loaded gun.
The Second Amendment says we can have guns. That’s fine. But we sure do need some gun management if we want to call ourselves civilized.
A loaded gun has absolutely no place on a person in public. Guns are for hunting sustenance and protecting our country, not to be carried to work and church.
We can start by doing away with the conceal-and-carry and open-carry laws. Allow the police to check for guns, and if anyone has a loaded gun he gets an immediate 30 days in jail, no questions asked.
Just like Wyatt Earp used to require, check your guns with the sheriff.
Bo Steed
Gallatin, Mo.
Quieting Trump
I believe Republican nominee Donald Trump could become our next president if the Republican Party would kidnap him and hide him in the deepest jungles of South America until the election is over so that nothing he says would be aired.
Every time he opens his mouth, he seems to put his foot in it.
Bill Betteridge
Independence
Another option
For Republicans who are part of the Never Trump crowd, there is another choice other than Hillary Clinton: Vote for Gary Johnson.
You can walk away from the voting booth with a clean conscience, having not voted for Donald Trump or Clinton. As for me, I plan to vote for Johnson and join the Libertarian Party, because I will not belong to a party that would nominate Trump for president.
Tim Mense
Shawnee
Public mandate?
There’s a silver lining to this joke of a presidential election: Regardless of which candidate wins, he or she won’t be able to jump into action with false claims of a public mandate. They both stink, and we all know it.
Why is America so divided right now? Because we’ve endured back-to-back eight-year terms from incompetent, divisive presidents.
President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq is seen by many as the worst mistake this nation has ever made.
President Barack Obama was elected by a bipartisan coalition of folks who agreed with him on this. But instead of focusing on something many folks agreed upon, he chose to focus all his efforts on health-insurance reform early in his presidency.
Both presidents took action without bipartisan support.
What do I want our next president to do for me? Nothing. For our nation? Nothing. For the world? Nothing.
We’ve done enough, and it’s time for this nation to shut up and regroup.
Dan Clem
Overland Park
Drug costs
If people want to know why drugs are so expensive, these are the questions they should ask:
1. How much money do pharmaceutical companies spend on advertising?
2. How much do they spend on salespersons who call on individual doctors?
3. How much do they spend on trips and conventions for doctors and other medical personnel?
4 How much do they spend on research?
Answers are found on Google: In 2012, the pharmaceutical industry spent more than $27 billion on drug promotion — more than $24 billion on marketing to physicians and more than $3 billion on advertising to consumers (mainly through television commercials).
The industry spends billions on trips and conventions for doctors and other medical personnel. The companies also spend about 18 percent of revenues on research and development.
Now we know why drugs are so expensive. Research is the only legitimate expense.
Joe Purcell
Kansas City
U.S., church, state
The words “separation of church and state” do not appear in any of our nation’s founding documents, although many people have suggested otherwise. Rather, the Declaration of Independence states “… that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.”
This nation is based on the fact that there are absolute truths that come from our creator, God, not from men and man-made governments. Yet, we are now to believe that these absolute truths are no longer valid? That church and religion have no authority to challenge and question men and man-made governments?
If that’s the case, then we can’t have it both ways. We can’t use the higher power when it’s convenient and ignore God when it’s not.
By separating the church from the state, we have allowed a religion of our creator, God, to be dismissed and we have replaced it with a religion of man.
Doesn’t that contradict our nation’s founding principles and our Constitution’s First Amendment?
Dennis Batliner
Overland Park
Kansas revolution
On Aug. 2, the majority of Kansans put Gov. Sam Brownback on notice and signaled their disapproval of his ultraconservative policies by voting out many incumbent state legislators who supported his views. However, the governor clearly has not received the message.
On Nov. 8, the remaining far-right incumbent lawmakers need to be swept from the statehouse rolls.
Moreover, if voters have learned anything from the “great Kansas experiment,” they should take a close look at the national Republican Party platform (much of it written by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach), which advocates taking nationwide the “trickle-down” fiscal policy that wrecked the Kansas economy and the restrictive positions on social and judicial issues that put our schools, health care and courts in jeopardy.
When casting your ballot Nov. 8, please keep in mind what happened to Kansas after voters gave carte blanche to the ultraconservative voice in 2010 and 2014.
Colleen W. Knight
Leawood
KCI needs redoing
I was disappointed that Mayor Sly James paused the conversation to modernize our airport. Kansas City International Airport has served us well for 45 years but now requires significant infrastructure and security upgrades.
We could repair an aging and outdated asset or build for the needs of the next 50 years. I vote for investing in the future with a new single terminal that also brings potential for additional flights, international destinations and rapid transit to downtown — much as our peer cities have done or are doing.
My understanding is that the new terminal would be funded by airline fees and concessions, not taxes, and debt would be backed 100 percent by the airlines. I don’t know how it gets any better than that.
Our parents made bold decisions that make Kansas City a great city today — KCI, Royals, Chiefs, the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, the Power & Light District and the Sprint Center. It’s our obligation to build for the generation that follows.
Kansas City has the world’s greatest engineering and architectural firms. Let’s lean on them to envision and build our next airport.
Brian O’Halloran
Kansas City
Go Green
The Democrats and Republicans have colluded to make us think they are our only alternatives. With the Donald Trump-Hillary Clinton fiasco, both parties have forfeited our continued acquiescence.
All down the ballot, their candidates supplicate themselves to billionaires behind closed doors, while in public they trash talk their opponents and sidestep the issues. The solutions we need will not be found with these irredeemably corrupted organizations that reside exclusively in the golden cage of their wealthy contributors.
There is an alternative: the Green Party.
The Green platform is a well-considered road map out of the dangerous terrain that these two corporate-management companies have driven us into. The Greens are not beholden to rich campaign donors; therefore, their proposals across the board are truly revolutionary in contrast to the failed approaches of the elite.
Don’t accept the poor choices the rich give us as the climate crisis escalates, refugee populations surge fleeing endless war and a generation of Americans is lost. Be bold and act outside the golden cage.
The political revolution will come. However, the time is getting very short for that revolution to avert disaster.
Don’t waste another vote on the Democrats or the Republicans. Vote Green.
Nathan Kline
Kansas City
Don’t shop
Animals in pet shops have often been put through inhumane living and birthing conditions. Those in search of a pet should adopt through a shelter instead of buying from a pet shop.
People spend $500-$2,500 on an animal from a pet shop even before buying the supplies needed to sustain the animal and care for it.
The animals that need homes are in animal shelters. Most animals in these shelters have not been bred through a puppy mill. The cost of the animals at these shelters is much lower and more affordable for the average U.S. family.
The sad sources of many animals from pet shelters are puppy mills, where dogs are bred at an inhumane rate and birthed in dirty, unhealthy environments that can lead to health problems. Puppy mills operate to get quick money in dog breeding before selling to pet shops.
Before you buy an expensive dog from a pet shop, remember the less pricey, more helpless dogs in shelters. Adopt, do not shop.
Claire Winn
Lee’s Summit
This story was originally published October 31, 2016 at 5:00 PM with the headline "Readers react to gun culture, Trump, public mandate, drug costs, KCI."