There is nothing more important nationwide than for all state and Congressional lawmakers and executive leaders to cease work on all matters except gun control and put together a plan to reduce gun violence significantly and quickly.

Our society has plainly become a “Killing Field” where people are constantly buying weapons legally, stealing them, or gifting them. The flow of guns starts at gun shops and flows across our country leaving 45,000 Americans dead at the end of a barrel annually. Murder, suicide, and accidents take loved ones away from families every day. and state and federal laws allow it to happen because most elected Republicans won’t support a change to reduce violence.

The GOP as a party is a hypocritical bunch with little concern for who lives or dies as long as guns are plentiful for the party faithful. The party worships guns and opposes even small, meaningful changes in gun laws; they have sold their souls to the Devil never to be redeemed, with no reward in Heaven as they promote death rather than lifesaving solutions. This parallels the “Killing Fields’’ murders of two million citizens by the leaders in Cambodia from 1975-79 in a political reprisal. Today in America, the GOP’s favorite law, the “open-carry-without-a-license,” has Republicans beaming with pride with their favorite handguns and assault rifles, leaving citizens bewildered about how we got this way.

The answer is simply that our country became numb and dumb when the GOP allowed gun lobbyists and the NRA to take control of our gun laws and lock them away with GOP approval. Citizens in Cambodia were overwhelmed and murdered by its government, and America has become overwhelmed by the fear instilled by these merchants of death. The price we pay each year is 45,000 lives in our own Republican “Killing Field.”

Death from guns can happen anywhere at any time with mass murders rampant this year and 162 mass shootings since January 1. In all, more than 12,000 Americans have died from gun violence, including murders, suicide, and accidents so far this year.

No citizen should be burdened with the worry and fear that guns bring into public places each day; neither should we have to put up with federal and state lawmakers who refuse to make changes that could give us and our families better protection from gun violence. Please, Republicans, help us now!

Grant Plymel

Thomasville, Ga.

Formerly of Colquitt County