Think safety

I am a native Houstonian and have been around guns for more than 65 years. I still actively hunt, and I’m licensed to carry handguns. However, it is high time for all of us to wake up and realize that there is every reason to comprehensively regulate all aspects of the possession and use of military-grade firearms, including assault rifles, machine guns and silencers, all specifically designed for the sole purpose of quickly killing as many people as possible.

Traditional shotguns, pistols and rifles do not pose the horrific risks of bloodshed and slaughter that these weapons do. You can easily defend yourself and your home with traditional firearms, which should remain constitutionally protected.

I have thought of this issue often since that day in August of 1966 when Charles Whitman began shooting people from the UT Tower in Austin, while I waited for my next class in another part of the campus.

Unfortunately, deranged people will always exist in any free society, but easy access to mindless weapons of swift slaughter should not be readily available to the general public.

My children, grand children and I, nay all our citizens, have a right to be safe in our churches, schools and public gatherings. William Harrison, Houston