Damar Hamlin’s moment of crisis was the wrong time for sports journalists’ commentary | Opinion
Give us facts
The Buffalo Bills’ Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac event on national TV in front of millions of people watching “Monday Night Football.” Hamlin’s 24-year-old heart stopped beating, but medical personnel arrived on the scene and his heart was restarted. And now it’s wait and see how he responds to treatment in a Cincinnati hospital.
The NFL made the correct decision to postpone the game. Unfortunately, many sports reporters did not make the decision to postpone their unsolicited remarks. Many felt the need to use Hamlin’s critical situation to remind everyone that football is a violent game and when players step onto that field they do so regardless of the risk, and so they should be paid more for playing such a dangerous sport.
It’s a good argument, but it was the wrong platform at the wrong time to deliver such commentary. What’s wrong with focusing on Hamlin, providing background on him and giving perspective about similar events in sporting history?
I can only conclude that many of those who provided such commentary have been speaking without thought so long that they can no longer just deliver the facts. That’s some very sad “reporting.”
- David Vanderwell, Olathe
Run the numbers
With Congress’ passage of the $1.7 trillion budget last month, I decided to do a little math. Here’s my breakdown: When the bill was signed, 273 days remained in the fiscal year. We, the taxpayers are on the hook for more than $6.2 billion per day. That’s more than $4.3 million per minute.
The bill contained 4,155 pages, which comes out to more than $409 million per page. I’m sure not a single senator or representative was able to read the bill. Our nation’s total debt just increased to more than $31 trillion.
Congratulations, elected officials. The voters will remember the additional debt you have burdened us with when you are up for reelection.
- Franklin Jensen, Shawnee
Gun realities
A Dec. 30 letter to the editor argued that it’s not guns that cause killings. (7A) Although I would agree that weapons as inanimate objects do not of their own volition cause deaths, they are used in the majority of homicides and suicides — 79%, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Although mass shootings and gang warfare may dominate news media reports, one-on-one homicides and suicides dominate gun mortality statistics. According to the CDC, in 2020 there were 45,222 gun deaths in the United States, of which 43% and 54%, respectively, were homicides and suicides. An additional 3% were classified as accidents, police-related or undetermined. The Gun Violence Archive, using the definition of a mass shooting as four or more people shot (fatally or not) tabulates 513 deaths, a little over 1% of total gun deaths. Therefore, although mass shootings get the most attention, they are a very small proportion of gun-related deaths.
If we want to do something about gun deaths, we should control the means as the most direct intervention. This would require a change to the Second Amendment, because so-called “commonsense” gun control seems untenable with current judicial interpretations. Other solutions, even when allowed, have proved inadequate.
- Scott C. Cozad, Kansas City
Peanut gallery
The Miami Herald republished The Kansas City Star’s Dec. 28 editorial about air travel disruptions in last week’s storms. (12A, “Deregulation got us cheap flights and KCI nightmares”) It says that the airlines’ prioritizing profits over customer service is “why you get a bag of peanuts instead of something better to eat when you fly.”
It must have been a while since editorial board members took an airline trip. Fearing passengers enduring a severe allergy reaction, airlines haven’t served peanuts in a very long time.
- Don Deresz, Miami
This story was originally published January 5, 2023 at 8:00 AM.