Lock away guns and ammo to prevent ‘family fire’ during holidays | Opinion
Secure guns
The holidays are among the most dangerous times of year for unintentional shootings. In Kansas City and across the country, the weeks around Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s see spikes in “family fire” — preventable tragedies that occur when children or relatives encounter unsecured firearms.
I became a mom in 2025, and when my daughter started crawling, her pediatrician urged us to lock up medicine and chemicals, cover outlets — and secure any firearms. These steps can save a child’s life.
Today, 4.6 million children live in homes with loaded, unlocked guns, and a third of adolescents say they can access one in minutes. Each year, thousands are injured or killed. During the holidays, merely searching for gifts or exploring a new home can turn deadly if firearms aren’t safely stored.
Secure storage — locked, unloaded and separate from ammunition — greatly reduces these risks. If more gun-owning households practiced it, we could prevent many youth gun suicides and unintentional shooting deaths.
This season, protect those you love: Store firearms securely and ask about guns in any home your child visits.
- Rachel Gonzalez, National organizing manager, Brady: United Against Gun Violence, Independence
Border war
The recent speculation about the Kansas City Royals moving to Johnson County is surprising, to say the least. The former Sprint campus, now home to Aspiria, being a potential build site surprises me even more.
When reports indicated the property had supposedly been bought by Royals management, I saw it as nothing more than a cheap attempt at reigniting the ever-simmering price war between the Kansas and Missouri state governments, hoping to score lower taxes to the detriment of its customers. That’s a completely separate debate, however, from the worrying prospect of a new Royals stadium actually being built in eastern Johnson County.
Politicians and executives can parrot all the talking points they want, but it doesn’t change the fact that, regardless of the impact on other parts of the metropolitan area where it could be built , any economic benefits created by a new stadium would be offset by those lost when the existing buildings have been demolished to make way for it.
- Josh Grummon, Shawnee
Binding oath?
As a Vietnam-era veteran, I swore the oath of allegiance to support and defend the Constitution. I listened to the William Calley My Lai massacre trial. Calley was convicted and sentenced for following an illegal order to kill unresisting civilians.
Now, in 2025, my president is calling the act of reminding service members not to break the law “seditious” and “punishable by death,” potentially inciting the murder of U.S. senators and representatives for keeping their oaths to support and defend the Constitution. (Nov. 23, 19A, “Trump wants death for 6 Democrats. Only 1 of our KS or MO senators disagreed”) The president’s social media message was morally wrong and unlawful.
Where are the voices of our representatives protesting this betrayal of the presidential oath of office? How can our elected officials be silent when our Constitution is being violated? Where is their integrity? If a man’s word is his bond, how much more binding should his sworn oath of office be?
But what do we hear from Congress, from the judiciary? Silence.
- Chris Roesel, Roeland Park
New DEI
David Mastio’s Nov. 23 column reports that only one of the four Kansas and Missouri U.S. senators were willing to go on the record opposing the death threat issued by the occupant of the Oval Office to six Democratic members of Congress. These six legislators simply reminded our men and women in the armed forces that they are not required to follow an unlawful order.
In Florida, Republicans represent 20 of the 28 congressional districts and hold both Senate seats. If Mr. Mastio’s question were asked of these 22 lawmakers, there would likely be no opposition to this threat.
Threats are common from an administration that has replaced the original DEI policy with one of its own championing: distortion, elimination and intimidation. This policy exists to quell any challenge to the president’s utterings . Now the policy has apparently been expanded to cover even death threats, the ultimate in elimination and intimidation.
It is unlikely that the sanity shown by Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran will be expanded. We are going to have to live with Moran’s sliver of hope that civil discourse can return to Oval Office.
- Douglas B. Bogart, Jacksonville, Florida
Action reality
America loves its big-screen action heroes. Dirty Harry, Murtaugh and Riggs, John McClain and Axel Foley have launched wildly successful franchises based on macho characters willing to create mayhem in pursuit of what they believe is just. The collateral damage in that pursuit is usually staggering, from property destruction and bystander injuries to an emphasis on body counts rather than arrests. America’s go-to action fantasy doesn’t pretend to portray actual law enforcement.
Donald Trump, with his “The Apprentice” and professional wrestling background, understands the mass appeal of lone wolf champions (Remember 2016’s, “I alone can fix it”?) and tapped into that audience. Unilaterally deploying soldiers on American streets, sending Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to swarm communities, tear-gassing and stun-gunning protesters, threatening to imprison opponents and blowing up suspected smuggling boats are intended to exploit the popularity of action heroes.
TV and movies never clean up after their heroes, though, because the devastation, upended lives, lawsuits filed, business lost and more would detract from the feel-good ending. Those issues are real, however, and effective police work is more like Joe Friday’s than Dirty Harry’s. The low incidence of major criminals caught during immigration raids and lack of evidence on the alleged drug boats in international waters substantiate it.
- John G. McDonald Jr., Ferguson, Missouri