Banning Assault Weapons: A Common-Sense Reform
Ralph Peters hit a bullseye. There is simply no valid reason for the average citizen to own rapidfire, high-capacity weapons (“Ban these machines of murder,” PostOpinion, Feb. 23).
Military-style rifles are designed to be “machines of murder,” as Peters states, and do not belong on the streets of a civil society.
Like Peters, I have served in the US Army infantry and have firsthand knowledge of the carnage that these weapons produce. I am also a proud NRA member and strongly support our constitutional right to own guns for protection, hunting, sport or collection.
But we need to also use common sense if we want to remain a civil society and not allow a few miscreants to wreak havoc on innocents. Kenneth P. Lebeck Plainview
The National Guard and Reserves are not the militia, as Peters appears to believe they are.
The Second Amendment protects a reservoir of arms in the hands of men who are not under government control.
I was in a National Guard tank battalion through 1980. Every rifle and pistol in a Nation Guard or reserve armory is the property of the government.
If or when the government becomes corrupt and tyrannical, it could be beaten back by arms in the hands of the citizens. Jim Martin Schenectady
As a gun owner myself (who quit the NRA at the same time and for the same reason that George H.W. Bush did), I must commend Peters. No one needs these killing machines. Eddie Denise Ossining
In his column regarding banning assault weapons, Peters wrote that “when the Second Amendment was drafted, the Redcoats really were coming.”
But the Redcoats were gone by the time the Second Amendment was written. The Revolution was over by 1783, and the Constitution was written four years later. Frank Obidienzo Huntington
It is absurd that an 18year-old cannot drink a beer, but he or she can walk into a suburban or rural Walmart and buy a gun. The age should immediately be raised to at least 21.
Additionally, there should be a limit on how many firearms or how much ammo a person can acquire.
I am a former card-carrying member of the NRA, and any elected official that takes support from them should be voted out of office. As Peters wrote, they “will have a great deal to answer for on Judgment Day.” Douglas Mandart Lindenhurst