Fort Lauderdale airport shooting
Just another mass shooting
The news media and public at large have moved on from the tragic events at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport that left five dead and several more wounded. No links to ISIS or al-Qaida, so nothing to see here, folks. Just another mass shooting, a small price to pay for the right to own as many guns as you can stockpile.
By now we've all heard the background story: Federal agents in Alaska say an American citizen, a veteran, voluntarily walked into FBI headquarters in Anchorage and confided to them that he was hearing voices. After a four-day mental evaluation he was released and shortly thereafter he got back his gun.
When he boarded a plane for Fort Lauderdale, he was just another gun owner with a legally owned firearm on his way to Florida. Once he got off that plane though, he ceased being a good-guy-with-a-gun and is accused of being a mass murderer. Not a terrorist though, because he lacked the religious and/or political affiliations required to strike terror in our hearts, unless of course you happened to be at the airport that afternoon. When he ran out of ammo, he simply dropped his weapon and surrendered to police.
We can't go violating the Second Amendment rights of everyone who seems a little delusional just because a few of these folks might be dangerous, now can we? Oh wait, isn't that the argument being made in this country to keep out Muslims seeking refuge out?
Unless committed by someone professing allegiance to a foreign terrorist organization, mass shootings have become just another unfortunate fact of life in America. Until we start electing politicians willing to stand up to the gun lobby this pattern of random violence will continue unabated.
Peter Gurtenstein, St. Pete Beach
Do markets work in health care? | Column, Jan. 16
Hard to shop around
Columnist David Brooks wonders if markets work in health care. His analysis seems to be based on consumers dealing directly with doctors and hospitals. However, that's not the way health care works. Health care has a middleman called insurance. Suppose you are hurt and unconscious. There is no shopping around getting quotes. Suppose your child is hurt, say, a broken bone. You go to the doctor or hospital. They verify a broken bone that needs a cast. Are you going to go to other hospitals looking for the lowest quote?
Brooks suggests that people figure out the best places to go. I tend to agree. But those places would, in theory, be the most expensive in a free market. I may be willing to go to the lowest cost store around for food, clothes and other stuff. But when it comes to health care, I want to go to the place everyone agrees is the best. Health care is not a normal market, so I don't expect normal market practices would work.
Russ A. Johnson, Hudson
Scant evidence housing vouchers curb poverty | Column, Jan. 16
Poverty vs. homelessness
As a retired educator who worked in a poverty community for 31 years, I read professor Susan Greenbaum's column with considerable interest.
While she rightly questions if housing vouchers substantially curb poverty, I thought housing vouchers are intended to curb homelessness. Poverty can be curbed with more better-paying jobs as Professor Greenbaum states.
But it's not an either/or choice. Both housing vouchers and better paying jobs are needed — the first to curb homelessness and the second to curb poverty. Better-paying jobs can be directly and quickly accomplished by raising the minimum wage in stages to $15 per hour over five years. Florida's minimum wage is only $8.10.
Frank Lupo, St. Petersburg
The presidential inauguration
I will march in Washington
On Saturday, the day after President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration, I will participate in the Women's March in Washington, D.C., in a show of solidarity against the threats against our rights and liberties. Like many others who had believed that the social progress our country had experienced in the past few years would continue when our first woman president was elected, I was horrified when a man was elected whose bullying tactics and treatment of women, Mexicans, Muslims, African Americans, the disabled and anyone who challenges him instills fear and despair and divides our country.
I will be proudly and loudly marching with two of my granddaughters, two sisters, my daughter-in-law, and many friends who are coming from all over the country.
I am marching because the world needs to see that the majority of our citizens, shown by popular vote, want to protect our human rights and those of the disenfranchised.
Mary Kaplan, New Port Richey
Presidential inauguration
Hoping for the best
As a moderate Democrat, I will feel relief on Inauguration Day. I will no longer have to defend President Barack Obama and Obamacare.
I will be able to sit back and watch President Donald Trump and the GOP improve health care and make it cheaper; improve our infrastructure; build the wall on the border with Mexico; get better trade agreements and improve our relations with our friends and enemies.
Oh, how I pray, this comes true.
Dominick Vazzano, St. Petersburg
Walmart closing in Midtown | Jan. 18
Start a co-op instead
I was sad to read about the closing of Walmart in South St. Petersburg. Rather than depend on another chain to come in and break hearts again, why doesn't the city work with the neighborhood to create a food co-op? I've shopped in food co-ops in other cities. Usually they are started by people who want organic produce and small batch cheeses, but they can take any form. A successful co-op would would enhance the neighborhood in many ways.
Elizabeth Corwin, Tampa