First, I want to thank Dov Marhoffer for his efforts to educate America’s youth on the Holocaust. May he live a long and healthy life and continue this vital work. May he be inscribed for blessing in the book of life and have a sweet new year.
But I take issue with his Op-Ed on the use of “Never Again” as a slogan for today’s youth-led anti-gun violence campaign.
He asserts that the slogan belongs to the Holocaust. The Holocaust defies a slogan, even if this one was widely employed in its aftermath.
The student activists are to be commended for garnering and sustaining national attention to gun violence. It is a public safety and public health threat.
My children — my precious children — and I have been too close for comfort to gunshots on more than one occasion. Once at a backyard barbecue in Tucson, once at a children’s park in Shreveport.
There are plenty of other precious children in America. I don’t want them to be murdered. Or me, or Mr. Marhoffer, or anyone.
As I wrote recently in the Shreveport Times, if America is going to own half the civilian-owned guns on earth, we need to have half a clue how to regulate them. Unlimited, uneducated, unregulated access to deadly weapons is a recipe for murder and mayhem, not liberty.
It’s past time for arms industry regulation. If the “Never Again” slogan gets the job done, I should hope that would bring Mr. Marhoffer pride and comfort for future generations who would be truly liberated from fear of innocent bloodshed in our midst.
— Sarah Chen, former Oro Valley resident
