Stay out of unnecessary wars and maybe violence at home will decline

Dear Editor:

More than a week after the massacre at a Colorado movie theater, Americans are still reflecting on the latest gun tragedy and casting blame on guns being too easy to obtain, on movies, TV and music being causes, and on the fact that we should be a more loving, tolerant and accepting nation (and people like the gunman in this incident would thus be less likely to go out and murder innocent people).

From a historical perspective, what is being overlooked is the fact that we are not just a violence-plagued nation, we are a nation born of violence and embedded in violence. Sometimes this violence is not our fault, such as Lexington and Concord, Pearl Harbor and Sept. 11.

But in contemporary America, many times it is our fault. We glorify our military for going into strange, far-off lands and killing people in the name of nation building, fighting for oil and just to show our might when there are many other ways we can do that.

When we stop spending billions on unnecessary wars, stop sending our young volunteer soldiers to far-off outposts to die for causes they are not even clear about, and either stay out of foreign affairs or go for cooperation and not confrontation, maybe we will see a decline in the violence at home.

Sincerely

David Shipp

Castro Valley Calif.