Letters: Americans have the wrong priorities

I had just moved to Columbia from Paris in 1995 when French President Jacques Chirac initiated a nuclear testing program in the Pacific that outraged most of the world and resulted in boycotts of French products. What will Donald Trump do in 2017?

Leading up to the election, there was more concern about Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s breakup than massacres taking place in the United States or Syria. Did our founding fathers really intend for every American to have a semi-automatic or assault weapon as the NRA suggests? It took 2015’s shooting in Charleston of one of their own to draw our state legislators’ attention to gun violence. But even that was almost forgotten until the September shooting in Townsville.

There has been concern about nuclear testing by North Korea but less about delays and massive overruns in expenditures of four nuclear plants being built in South Carolina. The need to dispose of nuclear waste will generate a minor concern, but only because of the expense. Alternative energy, be it solar or wind power, is ignored in spite of becoming more competitive.

This story was originally published November 26, 2016 at 4:50 PM with the headline "Letters: Americans have the wrong priorities."