Letter: Guns poison any hope of a civil soc..

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Stephen Van Dyke's criticism (Public Forum, Aug. 10) of Ron Molen's letter (Aug. 7) games the facts. The 100,000 dead and wounded each year mentioned by Molen breaks down accordingly: 13,000 homicides and 17,000 suicides or 30,000 dead and 70,000 wounded. These are general figures that stay consistent year after year according to public safety experts.

Precise numbers would be available were it not for Republicans stopping the Centers for Disease Control from collecting vital gun violence data that exposes the death toll from GOP-NRA policies.

Utah's annual gun deaths for young males exceeding traffic deaths is common knowledge and comes from a 2011 report that includes suicides (85 percent) and homicides, again guns found in the wrong hands.

The claim that the U.S. has half the private guns in the world comes from CNN and makes perfect sense, as we are the only advanced nation without responsible gun controls.

Utahns should also be concerned that 120,000 fellow citizens can legally carry a concealed weapon virtually anywhere and, along with the proliferation of assault rifles, the trust among citizens in a healthy democracy is lost. Armed, untrained and unknown individuals poison any possibility for a civil society.

Does the LDS Church really want this kind of community?

Nicholas Smith

Salt Lake City

Letter: Guns poison any hope of a civil society