Spring is here again, and for the ninety third time in my life. I love spring, the sound of the mourning dove, fruit trees in blossom, the new beginning, hope. I also hate spring, the season thirty two years ago my son was shot and killed by a graduate student from Stanford with a car filled with weapons and ammunition.
Only in America could this happen. Only in America is the gun the major cause of death for adolescents. Only in America, with the largest and best funded military does the nation do nothing to protect its own.
Children go to school living in fear because of lockdowns, and parents live in fear of sending their children into a potentially dangerous environment. Even attending Sunday school can be life threatening. For many American children there is almost no place to hide, particularly if there is a gun in the home.
My son would still be alive if he had lived in Canada, or any other advanced democracy. And that’s even true for children in China and Russia. And why? They do not have a soulless Republican Party working feverishly to make sure guns are available for everyone including a frightening number of potential killers. And Americans are paying a terrible price. The nation has lost my son, a gifted published author at the age of twenty three. And since then, the nation has lost a million citizens from gun violence, including many who had much to contribute.
The current Republican Party has become a curse, a virus that threatens a civilized society. If there were no Republican Party we could all relax, sit back, and enjoy nature’s spectacular spring without living under the cloud of fear that something is terribly wrong, out of sync, frightening.
Ron Molen, Salt Lake City
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