We need to teach right from wrong

Stephen Waldron, Las Vegas

Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2008 | 2:02 a.m.

After reading Friday’s letter to the editor by Sandra Hanson, headlined “Guns self-fulfilling prophecy of death,” I sat back and said, “Huh?” Her short but not so sweet argument was that if we didn’t have guns, we wouldn’t need them.

It wasn’t until I read on the next page the commentary by Nicholas Kristof about the troubles in Kenya, and saw the photo that accompanied the column, that I realized what Ms. Hanson was saying. Those rioters didn’t have guns, but they didn’t need guns. That machete would do just fine in decapitating that poor guy. Or for that matter a rock, a stick, fire, gas chambers or whatever.

When will people realize that there is evil in the world and we can’t combat evil by holding up a sign on Las Vegas Boulevard saying war is bad or by writing letters to the editor saying if we didn’t have guns, we wouldn’t need guns and there would be peace and harmony in the world?

Until we start teaching our children again that there is such a thing as right and wrong, that morals matter and that life is precious and should be revered whoa, hold on there, these things sound too close to religion and we have to be separate from that there will always be death and evil in the world, with or without guns.