It’s not the guns or ammunition; it’s a human behavior problem

The Courant’s editorial questions why “a weapon designed for military combat makes sense for ordinary civilians.” It doesn’t recognize that, historically, the same firearms used by the military were also used by civilians in their daily activities.

The U.S. Congress 1903 War Department Appropriations Act created the Civilian Marksmanship Program to provide civilians marksmanship skills with military rifles. After World Wars, military rifles were sold to civilians. As military firearms evolved, they became available in civilian models. Various bolt action and semi-automatic rifles were manufactured for hunting, target shooting and personal defense. The 1934 National Firearms Act tightly regulated civilian ownership of a fully-automatic firearm (machine gun) until the 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act prohibited civilian possession of newly made machine guns.

Civilians are accustomed to ownership and use of military style firearms. Manufactures don’t have to peddle a message for civilians to have military type firearms. The most recent firearm related killing of high school students by a classmate did not use an AR-15 rifle; a semi-automatic pistol was used. This type pistol is used for military combat as well as civilian target shooting and personal or home defense.

If one is looking for how AR-15 style firearms have come to be used in mass shootings, then look at how they are glorified in films, television and video games. All these venues depict military-style firearms used by civilians for purposes that mimic what we are seeing in current events. Those claiming to prohibit civilian possession of certain firearms or ammunition as the answer to mass shootings miss the remaining culprit which is human behavior. Humans are not very tolerant of other humans and have always found a way to do mortal harm to a few or many through a variety of methods. We must address human behavior to solve the problem.

Winston A. Campbell, Bloomfield