This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Keeping guns out of the wrong hands is important, but keeping gun policy out of the wrong hands is imperative.
The coalition of the National Rifle Association, the Republican Party, libertarians and gun manufacturers has demanded permissive gun policies that guarantee 30,000 deaths each year. Because of gun addiction and cold-hearted hubris, these wrong hands have nothing to contribute to intelligent solutions to gun violence.
We are indeed a pitiful superpower with the best-trained and equipped military to protect us. Yet it took a deranged fool killing 20 children to remind us of our staggering annual death toll from firearms. Handguns and assault weapons have no legitimate place in unregulated and untrained hands.
And to suggest "more guns" as a solution to gun violence is absurd — coming from the very people who created the problem. The Second Amendment was never meant to support an epidemic of gun-related deaths.
There is no reason Americans can't be as free of gun violence as are the citizens of every other advanced nation. Only a decadent GOP and a gun-addicted NRA stand in the way.
Ron Molen
Salt Lake City