A recent CBS Sunday Morning (7-2-23) story emphasized the importance of small-town newspapers much like the Morning Sun being taken over by local ownership and shining a light on local and state issues that might otherwise go unreported. The Morning Sun would do its readers a great service if it would invite Representative Chuck Smith and former state Senator Richard Hilderbrand to each write op-eds in the paper explaining their current positions on topics like a woman’s right to choose in Kansas and a total ban in Kansas of military style semi-automatic weapons. The public needs to be updated on their positions given the August 2022 vote in Kansas to retain a right to abortion and given that there have been more than 21,000 people killed by gun violence so far this year in the United States and that gun violence is the leading cause of death of children in our country.