This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
On Sept. 27, when most Democrats were probably assuming that our next president would be Hillary Clinton, Rep. Ted W. Lieu and Sen. Ed Markey introduced the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act of 2016. On Jan. 24, Lieu and Markey reintroduced the bill, which is now numbered HR669 and S200.
The United States president has the authority to launch nuclear weapons; no congressional approval is needed. Back in 1974, then President Richard Nixon commented, "I can go back into my office and pick up the telephone and in 25 minutes 70 million people will be dead."
Is this what we really want? Nuclear weapons are not "smart" weapons. They're dumb. They don't distinguish between a church, a market and a military installation. Even if the weapons are targeted for a missile site, they are too imprecise to hit the missile site alone. Nuclear bombs destroy too widely to be useful for military purposes, which is why they haven't been used in war since 1945.
We need to get rid of nuclear weapons, period. Until that day, HR669 and S200 would help protect life on our Earth, including the lives of our children.
Deb Sawyer
Salt Lake City