Once again our country overreacts to terrorism with exaggerated fear. How quickly we go overboard when an act of “terrorism” happens when we ignore the gun-wielding crazies walking openly in our streets.

There have been few, if any, terror-related deaths in the United States since 2001. However, over 100,000 have been killed with guns by our own citizens. Now that is cause for fear, not the unfounded fear of the relatively few refugees expected in this country.

I ask each of you to look at your own history and ask, “How did my family get here?” I would venture a guess that a majority of them came fleeing from something. Mine came in the 1630s fleeing religious persecution. Others came fleeing economic strife, famine, political upheaval, etc. This country was founded by those fleeing their homelands. In the late 1950s, Castro overthrew Batista in Cuba and thousands fled Cuba for the United States. People feared these refugees and now we have two descendants of that influx running for president.

Take time, folks, to review U.S. history and look at the number of times in our short span that we had thousands come ashore, and surprise t– hey for the most part assimilated in to the mainstream and have become productive American citizens.

So many of our citizens say we were founded on Christian principles. Are we now living by those principles? I don’t think so. Remember Jesus was born to parents fleeing persecution.

Frank Klein

Durango