Letter to the Editor
Gun control is a passionate subject with supporters both sides of the issue. I personally believe in the second amendment as it’s written. But I also believe in reasonable interpretation of gun laws. When the second amendment was written there were no semiautomatic and automatic weapons.
Gun owners at the time were also their areas regional National Guard aside being a private citizen. Their rifles when loaded held only one round of ammunition. After discharging their firearms they had to immediately reload. But make no mistake about they owned an assault rifle for their times in history.
Their weapons were also used for peaceful purposes. Part of the problem today many of our elected leaders want to subvert our second amendment. The outright banning all assault weapons is an outrageous subversion of the second amendment.
The issue before our elected officials shouldn’t be the weapon itself but it’s magazine capacity. WWII was fought and won with the M1 Garand Rifle with a 8 round capacity. Today many modern firearms can have much higher capacities which can be devastating when criminally used against a civilian population.
Rifle and handgun high magazine capacities should have been the primary focus of legislators all along. If WWII was fought and won with a rifle with an 8 round capacity
why not limit all civilian firearm capacities to something under 8 rounds? Preferably 5 rounds for long guns and 7 rounds for handguns.
I personally don’t own any assault type weapons. I don’t want to own any. Owning an assault rifle in an any congested city like Chicago for example is dangerous and asinine. I believe assault rifles are better suited for rural areas like farms and ranches. For responsible citizens who do own them I hope they keep them locked up and out of the hands of children and others.
Today my son is a middle aged man and he owns assault type weapons. When he was a little boy I let him have toy guns. But we had rules. He wasn’t allowed to point them at people. He had to store them away properly when he was done playing with them. He had to always keep them pointed up or down when he was moving them around. Case in point, gun safety starts at home and it starts early in life.
Richard Briley Jr
