Dear Editor,
In response to Linda Johnson’s letter ” Child abuse is preventable and gun violence is child abuse,” published in the Mountain Times last month, guns, per se, are not the problem. We didn’t have this problem 50 years ago. The problem is a decaying morality that is prevalent in this country. The AR-15 is not a “machine gun.” It is a contemporary semi-automatic rifle that is popular for hunting and self-defense. AR stands for Armalite Rifle, which is a brand name. Semi-automatic means one pull of the trigger, which means one bullet coming out, similar to a revolver. It is the most popular and widely owned gun in the U.S. and more people are killed with blunt instruments than with long guns of any kind.
I will answer your question: “Is it necessary to be a gun owner, and if so, why?”
It is if you choose to be a legal law-abiding American. The founders understood that if the people need to defend themselves as is their God-given right, or to defend their freedom, they will need guns to do so. To defend yourself against a person who would do you harm of any kind with any kind of weapon, or say a woman defending herself from a much larger and stronger man, is something that is your God-given right to do. The founders made it quite clear we can do that legally with a firearm. The wording is clear, unequivocal, and deliberate.
When the Second Amendment was written, all weapons were military grade and cannons were not excluded. Australia, which was recently locked down for the pandemic, kept people in their houses by force with armed police. The government has guns but citizens do not. There are videos of police knocking people to the ground who were outdoors merely to smoke a cigarette. An armed government can do whatever it chooses to an unarmed populace.
Ms. Johnson, who would like to restrict gun ownership to keep children safe; doing so will not have the intended effect nor would it be constitutional.
Most children who are killed by gun violence are killed by street gangs in neighborhoods where gun crime is rampant because current gun laws are not enforced nor prosecuted by local authorities.
Before Hitler started exterminating Jews, he disarmed them. Before Venezuela decided who got food, the government disarmed them.
Human nature is the problem. Not gun ownership
Ms. Johnson would like to blame the tool for the crime. The blame is on the person who committed the crime.
George de Luna,
Berkeley Heights, NJ
