A Tale of Two Letters

Two letters appeared in today’s Plain Dealer, both touching upon the subject of diversity. One, adapted by me from a blog post I made several days ago; and another, by Erik Kolesar of North Olmsted. Kolesar’s letter, the tone of which defines the term Ugly American, demands a response.

There have been other acts of terrorism over the last several years that have nothing to do with foreign values, and the frothing displayed by politicians in the wake of the Boston Marathon attack serves only to distract the public from a substantially worse problem. Let’s review:

*Adam Lanza, a natural-born citizen, killed 27 people (mostly children) in Newtown, Connecticut – using a Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle with multiple round magazines.

*James Holmes, a natural-born citizen, killed 12 and wounded 58 in Aurora, Colorado – using a 12-gauge Remington 870 Express Tactical shotgun, a Smith & Wesson M&P15 semi-automatic rifle with a 100-round drum magazine, a Glock 22 40-caliber handgun, preceded by several gas or smoke canisters – all purchased legally.

*Jared Loughner, a natural-born citizen, killed 6 and wounded 12 in Tuscon, Arizona – using a 9mm Glock pistol.


America's ongoing violence problem is clearly not the result of immigration, and we should remember that one of the victims in the Boston Marathon attack, Lü Lingzi, was a Chinese citizen.

In no way am I minimizing the terrible events in Boston. The actions of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev constitute terrorism. Four people were killed and scores injured. But considering that the United States is a prominent country with a population of over 300 million and a substantial worldwide military presence, there have been remarkably few acts of Islamic terrorism on our soil post-9/11.

There are an average of 40 murders in the United States every DAY – most of which are committed with guns.  We need to ask why an improvised explosive device is a weapon of mass destruction, but a semi-automatic weapon is not.