Disarmament worries

Regarding “Nuclear treaty earns Nobel” (Page A1, Saturday), the Nobel Peace Prize for this year was awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. They managed to get 122 nations to sign a “we will neither use nor develop nuclear weapons” treaty. Fair enough, but I have two words on this subject: Las Vegas.

Thousands of people went through security so that no one would get shot. No one at the concert planned to kill anyone, neither did they want anyone to get killed. Yet, a single individual with superior weapons massacred 58 people who did not see it coming and had no defense other than bringing in police who did have sufficient fire power.

This is the conundrum of disarmament. All of the world’s leaders could sign a “no nukes” treaty and a ruthless predator could make the treaty irrelevant. Alternatively, all the world’s leaders could sign a “no nukes” treaty and a major power could announce a legal device we don’t even know about that could convert a continent into a cauldron of molten lava.

We are stuck with nukes for the same reason we are stuck with mass shootings — we don’t know how to get rid of them.