• Semi-automatic rifles are seen for sale in a gun shop in Las Vegas, Nevada on October 4, 2017. Mass killer Stephen Paddock used semi-automatic weapons which he modified with "bump-fire stock" to make them fire at the same speed as a fully automatic weapon when he killed 58 people and injured over 500 in the worst mass shooting in modern American history on October 1, 2017 at a country music festival in Las Vegas. / AFP PHOTO / Robyn BeckROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images ORG XMIT: Trump tra Photo: ROBYN BECK / AFP or licensors
Photo: ROBYN BECK
Image 1of/1

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 1
Semi-automatic rifles are seen for sale in a gun shop in Las Vegas, Nevada on October 4, 2017. Mass killer Stephen Paddock used semi-automatic weapons which he modified with "bump-fire stock" to make them fire at the same speed as a fully automatic weapon when he killed 58 people and injured over 500 in the worst mass shooting in modern American history on October 1, 2017 at a country music festival in Las Vegas. / AFP PHOTO / Robyn BeckROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images ORG XMIT: Trump tra less
Semi-automatic rifles are seen for sale in a gun shop in Las Vegas, Nevada on October 4, 2017. Mass killer Stephen Paddock used semi-automatic weapons which he modified with "bump-fire stock" to make them ... more
Photo: ROBYN BECK

What can I say in response to Kristin Christman's comprehensive, devastating commentary ("Rethink weapons exports," April 1) on the United States as a giant-sized, ever-fattening distributor of arms across earth?

Unfortunately, I can add that the United States is, in addition to being the provider of arms for other countries' wars, the world's most violent country, involved in its own wars in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, in various places on the African continent. America is a country that loves to threaten other countries with violence, a country that has dispensed completely with the diplomatic option for maintaining its national security.

This economy based on arms production has made America a country that cannot afford to seek peace, cannot afford to shift the meaning of "arms" from a word for assault to a word of embrace, cannot afford to empty its hands of "guns" and fill them with aid for the world's suffering.

Did you know that, by one calculation, 3 percent of America's military budget could end starvation on earth? A war budget transformed into a peace budget. A joke? A miracle? No: an absolute imperative whose foundation is "Love your neighbor ... love your enemies."

Francine Dempsey

Albany