Readers sound off on KC streetcar, Gov. Sam Brownback, guns
Bumpy streetcars
The new Kansas City streetcars are clean, quiet and modern. However, they are slow because of the lack of an electronic system to change traffic lights to green when the streetcars approach intersections.
Also, the seats are uncomfortable, hard plastic. As far as I can tell, the streetcar system is only for tourists and not functional transportation for residents.
Clark H. Coan
Lawrence
Sunlight search
If you believe “the sun is still shining in Kansas” and support Gov. Sam Brownback and his policies, there is no need for you to read further. But if you share the views of 72 percent of likely Kansas voters, who in a recent poll rated Brownback’s job performance as “unfavorable or highly unfavorable,” please consider the following:
Brownback could not have achieved the dubious title of “Most Unpopular Governor in America” (per Morning Consult survey) without the help of many state legislators who share his ultraconservative views. What I ask is that you please do your homework and investigate the records and policies of your candidates before casting your vote.
There are many sources that have endorsed moderate candidates in the Johnson, Wyandotte and Douglas county races. And if you are a single-issue voter (anti-abortion), please consider the baggage that seems to accompany candidates who run on this issue.
This includes but is not limited to cutting school funding, denying health care and expanding gun rights — all of which to me are the opposite of a so-called pro-life stance.
Kansans, the ball is in our court.
Colleen W. Knight
Leawood
Guns, civilization
About every place we would normally feel safe has been violated by people with guns. The more people get shot, the easier it is to buy a gun.
Every other civilized country in the world must think we are a country of idiots. Of course, they are right. How to stop gun violence? Give everyone a gun. Only in America.
Hello, America. We’ve lost. After looking at this problem for years, studying history and writings about the people who wrote the Constitution, I believe there is no way our Founding Fathers would allow mass murderers to own guns.
Guns are now killing almost as many people as vehicles. Moreover, the people getting killed by guns are usually innocent victims.
We are going to get gun laws only when people start being afraid to go places where there are crowds. It will be when football games are played with the stands half full or shopping centers are losing business.
When it starts to hurt profits, we will act. A lot of people will die before that happens.
Joe Purcell
Kansas City
Voting matters
President Franklin Roosevelt said, “Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves, and the only way they could do this is by not voting.”
According to information on the Kansas office of the secretary of state website, only 20 percent of Kansas’ registered voters cast ballots in the 2014 August primary election. The primary election is almost as important as the general election, because it determines who will be on ballot in November.
In the 2014 general election, 51 percent of registered voters cast ballots.
As a native Kansan and father of two children, I care deeply about our state’s future. I wish to see a prosperous state that is safe, maintains a dependable infrastructure, reaches out and supports those most in need, values all citizens and provides a world-class education and training program for all.
This is all possible. However, it greatly depends on whom Kansans elect in the Aug. 2 primary and in the Nov. 8 general election.
Our state and our future depend on the leadership of today. Please help choose those leaders.
Kansas school superintendents encourage you to engage in the democratic process this summer and fall by voting.
Cory L. Gibson
President
Kansas Schools
Superintendents
Association
Valley Center, Kan.
Tax cut failures
Supporters of Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback promote his plan for the federal government. What they don't seem to realize is that the federal government already has followed this plan.
It was during the 1920s under the leadership of three Republican presidents — Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover — and a Republican Congress. The tax cuts for the rich while cutting public services reduced the debt by billions of dollars by 1932.
This was the plan of Secretary of Treasury Andrew Mellon and Commerce Secretary Hoover before his election as president. By 1932 the United States had an unemployment rate of more than 20 percent.
Richard Tatro
Kansas City, Kan.
Another shooting
Again? I cannot pray,
Past words have wafted up to heaven and stayed.
Instead — I long to do,
But in what way I’m just as lost as you.
You think perhaps the tide turned when
Our guns could fire over and over again?
Or have hearts darkened as some say?
And still — I need help finding words to pray.
Carol Watts
Overland Park
This story was originally published July 22, 2016 at 3:00 PM with the headline "Readers sound off on KC streetcar, Gov. Sam Brownback, guns."