Readers sound off on voting, Kansas budget, gun laws in Missouri
Voting matters
Why all the controversy about voting these days? It’s probably because the two major political parties have starkly different viewpoints on voting.
Democrats believe higher voter participation is invigorating for democracy. Republicans calculate restricting voter participation increases their odds of winning elections.
That is why Missouri Republicans won’t support early voting and Kansas requires proof-of-citizenship documents when registering to vote.
It is why primary voters in Maricopa County, Ariz., were waiting to vote well past midnight. But voters in Oregon are automatically registered when they get their drivers’ license.
In Texas, you can show your concealed-carry permit or gun registration and vote, but college students can’t use their student photo identifications. In Ohio and four other states, Republican-led legislatures have dramatically reduced early voting to as few as eight days, with no voting on weekends.
It’s no coincidence that states with Republican legislative majorities have imposed discriminatory voter restrictions. It’s part of a national strategy “to take the country back” (to the Dark Ages?).
Keep enough poor people, minorities and college students from voting, and Republicans believe they can overcome the disadvantages of being the party identified closely with intolerance, ignorance and religious bigotry.
Scared yet?
Just vote.
Jeffrey Bushman
Kansas City
Kansas budget
Is it the right time to initiate a GoFundMe account to rescue the Kansas education system and the obligation Kansas has to ensure that the poorest receive nutrition, the sickest get medical care and the elderly can live in dignity until the end?
Also, there’s the news that the highest-paid state employee, KU basketball coach Bill Self, pays almost no state taxes.
We’re told that former Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz may be the devil, but it’s possible that it’s hell to reside in Kansas.
Paul Comerford
Blue Springs
Missouri, guns
Missouri’s state legislators have passed a sweeping bill to give people “their full rights under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.” But like the conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court, their reasoning is based on half the amendment: “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
It’s hypocritical. Felons who have paid their debts to society can’t own a gun, an infringement under their half-amendment interpretation.
Even if Gov. Jay Nixon signs the bill, gun rights of law-abiding citizens will end at the entrances to the Missouri Capitol and many courthouses in the state.
Had the framers of the Constitution wanted to provide every citizen the right to own and carry a gun, they would have said so.
However, they knew that the federal government shouldn’t be able to forbid states to organize militias. Using the word “people” the same way they used it in the Preamble, they wrote, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
When making laws, using half an amendment is foolish indeed.
Keith Evans
St. Joseph
Lawsuits, guns
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders is correct. Guns in America are legal. If a gun shop owner sells a gun legally to a person who kills someone, the gun shop owner and gun manufacturer shouldn’t be considered accomplices and sued.
Example: If someone stabs another, should the store that sold the knife and the knife manufacturer be sued? If someone kills someone with his or her car, should the auto dealer and car manufacturer be liable and sued?
What happened to common sense? Instead, shouldn’t the shameless National Rifle Association, which heavily promotes guns of all types for greed alone, be sued?
Shouldn’t irresponsible legislators who pass laws that allow guns in schools, shopping malls, churches and elsewhere be sued if someone is killed in those areas?
Taking it further: Should pastors who allow guns in church, where a murder takes place, be sued?
Wow. If we allow these suits whenever there is a shooting in America, or knifing, or auto accident, we’d have millions upon millions of suits in a year’s time. Lawyers would love it.
Whatever happened to sensible gun laws that members of Congress refuse to pass?
Oh, I forgot. They’re in the pocket of the NRA.
William R. Park Sr.
Shawnee
This story was originally published May 21, 2016 at 3:00 PM with the headline "Readers sound off on voting, Kansas budget, gun laws in Missouri."