To the Editor:

The first duty of government to its citizens is to safeguard them from acts of violence. Instead, the President suggests that worshiping Jews, Christians, Muslims and school teachers bear the responsibility and costs of hiring private armies to protect our people and our institutions.

I don’t want live in a country where we need armed guards in houses of worship and schools. The President’s offhand solution to the violence in our nation, this time in Pittsburgh, is repugnant. If more guns in schools and churches is the answer, then God help us.

George Soros and the media cannot be blamed for the President’s dereliction of duty. In the meantime, the President is obsessed with sending a militia to turn back thousands of families fleeing from murderous violence in their homelands.

In demonizing “the other,” President Trump incites the acts of hate that he professes to deplore. He can express condemnation of such acts all he wants, but his calls for harsher punishments fail to address remedies that might actually work to prevent hate crimes, such as, stricter screening for buyers of firearms and explosives and a toning down of his divisive rhetoric.

The President wants to turn back the clock to a time when “America was great.” He chooses to ignore that his mythical time of American greatness included a time when the people choose our leaders, not the courts or an outdated electoral process, a time when political discourse was measured by civility, a time when armed guards in schools and churches was an unimaginable necessity.

I have no expectation that the President will change his bellicose, hate-driven rhetoric, but we the people who live in the backdrop of the current political divisiveness can do more. All of us should strive to make a sincere effort to treat those whose political opinions we disagree with respect. And let’s do a better job of practicing what our religious faith and moral compasses teach.

John Barry

Franklin