Russ Carnahan

We have a VA hospital back home in St. Louis. Like many of our colleagues, we hear continued concerns about the access and the service. I have seen a statistic that more than 60,000 veterans today are waiting more than 6 months for an appointment at a VA hospital.

If you want to go out for a hunting trip and shoot cans with your son and a .22, that's fine. Do I need an AK-47 with a 100-round magazine if I'm going on a hunting trip? No. It is, to borrow a phrase from Confucius, like using a cannon to kill a mosquito.