Letters: Readers discuss our ongoing gun violence epidemic and the border wall

By the numbers

There have been only 40 full days in 2019. Already we have seen too many instances of gun violence for us not to make changes to gun laws and accessibility in the U.S.

According to Andrew Weinstein, chair of the Democratic National Committee’s National Lawyers Council, there have been almost 5,000 gun violence incidents in those 40 days. More than 1,000 deaths by gun violence. More than 2,000 injuries from gun violence. In those 40 days, there have at least 31 shootings that involved more than one person.

Something needs to be done. A child shot his mother when he found a gun. A child killed himself when he found a gun.

Almost 5,000 gun-violence incidents, and yet no passage of any gun reform.

Continuing to do nothing about the problem helps no one but the National Rifle Association. If Sens. Roy Blunt and Josh Hawley and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver are not motivated by such staggering numbers this early in a year, then I question their empathy.

Shane De Clue

Grandview

See it from space

The president doesn’t want a wall, per se. He wants a monument, a structure to feed his ego — something else to use for self-glorification.

Of those who have served as president of this country, the current Oval Office occupant is the least deserving to have such an honor and the only one who would so openly pursue and crave it.

He should be remembered in the future not as an ideal, but as a warning.

Steve Barnhart

Kansas City