Letters: Readers discuss mass murder in Texas and Las Vegas, NFL protests and GOP taxes

Sad prescience

I would encourage everyone to read the commentary by Amanda Getchell in the Sunday Star. (19A, “Las Vegas horror already forgotten”) She was at the Oct. 1 concert in Las Vegas where Stephen Paddock killed 58 people and wounded hundreds more.

“It’s like it never happened,” she wrote. People have moved on. She wonders, “Why do we allow people to own weapons of war and mass destruction and act as though there’s nothing we can do about it?”

Little did I know that 26 people in Texas would be murdered only two hours after I read the column.

I reiterate: Why do we take no action on commonsense gun laws when such horrific events occur?

Susie Rawlings

Leawood

Group burden

Why is it that when white men commit mass murders such as those in Las Vegas and Sunday in Texas, President Donald Trump labels the perpetrators as being insane, which obviously they are, but when a Muslim commits the same kind of act, in Trump’s world it is considered an act of terrorism for which all Muslims must be held responsible?

As a black man, I’m glad I don’t have to take the blame for the crimes committed by other blacks. I’m sure whites feel the same when the killings of innocent people are committed by other whites.

Eddie L. Clay

Grandview

Unnecessary detail

I read The Kansas City Star every day. I find your reporting to be helpful and honest and The Star to be open to comments from readers.

This being true, I question the necessity of repeating gory details of some murders. One example is the detail found in the Nov. 4 edition: “Father of boy fed to pigs wants to withdraw guilty plea.” (5A)

These details, which have appeared before: Do they have meaning for a 10-year-old? Is the day going to be more meaningful to your readers? Will the reader later in the day wonder how one kills a child and feeds it to pigs?

I will continue reading The Star, hoping some details will appear only once.

Raymore

Two worlds

From the first Olympics, organizers have striven to keep politics out of athletics. Fans pay a high price for tickets to be entertained at a game, not to be confronted by political demonstrations.

Athletes are free to make political statements whenever or wherever they want, outside of games. Keep politics out of sports.

Marie Eubank

Lee’s Summit

GOP tax plan

Candidate Donald Trump promised an infrastructure program and put a $1 trillion price tag on it. It was a good idea because it would have created thousands of high-paying blue-collar jobs.

Many in the middle class voted for Trump because of it.

Conservative Republicans did not like the infrastructure idea, because it would increase the federal deficit. As president, Trump has not delivered an infrastructure plan.

Last week, some of those same Republicans proposed a tax bill they claim would create thousands of jobs. It would increase the federal deficit by $1.5 trillion, but that does not seem to bother them now.

Trump says he loves the bill, maybe because corporations and millionaires such as him would enjoy huge tax breaks.

For instance, it would eliminate the alternative minimum tax, which cost Trump more than $30 million in taxes in 2005, the last year we know what he paid in income tax.

If Trump and the Republicans are really concerned about the middle class, they need to ask themselves which is more likely to create jobs: a program that directly and immediately funds jobs for the middle class, or a tax break that promises a trickle-down effect from corporations that are already sitting on mountains of money?

Jim Patrico

Plattsburg, Mo.

President Donald Trump and the GOP legislators are not to be confused with Robin Hood and his merry outlaws.

John Savala

Platte City

This story was originally published November 6, 2017 at 8:30 PM with the headline "Letters: Readers discuss mass murder in Texas and Las Vegas, NFL protests and GOP taxes."