Take a chance on the Syrian refugees
At last count, 31 governors, all but one a Republican, have said their states won’t take any Syrian refugees. The fear they want to convey to their citizens is that some of these refugees might be ISIS terrorists.
Republican presidential candidates have almost unanimously condemned allowing any Syrian refugees into the country because there is a small chance that some might be ISIS terrorists. Never mind all of the terrorists in Paris were citizens of either France or Belgium. They say we can’t possibly vet all of these people, so we should keep them all out.
We have 110 million Americans in this country who own 330 million guns. We can be absolutely certain that on any given day about 64 people will be killed by violence, by accident and through suicide by these guns.
We can also be certain that eventually some of these gun owners will commit mass murder. We can’t get Congress to agree that everyone who seeks to buy a gun ought to have a background check. And we’re afraid of Syrian refugees?
What we should be concerned about is fear- mongering politicians, not a few thousand refugees. We can take the chance. We do it every day.
Gordon Fake, Fresno
This story was originally published November 20, 2015 at 9:34 AM with the headline "Take a chance on the Syrian refugees."