A Letter to the Towerlight:
Obama’s Attack on Firearm Laws is Unfounded, Based on Incorrect Info

Robert Sagona

30 March 2009

[This was originally titled “Ignorance and Lies From the Obama Administration.”  The title was altered by The Towerlight, and the piece was truncated because of The Towerlight’s word limit on letters to the editor; this is the full length article.]

Gangs and drug dealers armed with fully-automatic firearms are committing crimes with these weapons on both sides of the border.

The Obama Administration is blaming our relaxed gun control laws due to the weapons being used by these criminals, and subsequently wants to push for further regulation here in the United States.  But there is something that they’re not telling you.

Some of the criminals in Mexico are using fully-automatic rifles (by definition, “assault rifles”).  Here in the United States, citizens are prohibited from owning assault rifles.  Furthermore, our ownership of unrelated firearms is being blamed as the source of Mexico’s problems.

Again, automatic rifles are illegal here!  If you want to buy a rifle, it must be a semi-automatic or boltaction rifle, both commonly used for hunting.  Sure, here in the United States you can buy a semi-auto rifle that may look identical to an assault rifle (like an AR-15, which is the civilian version of the M16), but looks cannot hurt you.  They function in entirely different ways!

But because criminals in Mexico are obtaining automatic assault rifles (which are illegal here) from sources (third world countries, corrupt government officials, etc.) unrelated to average American citizens, the Obama Administration’s reaction is to ban our semi-automatic rifles by calling them “assault weapons,” which sounds a lot like “assault rifle.”

Anti-gun organizations and politicians use creative rhetoric to confuse the public.  Need proof?  Ever hear of the “Assault Weapons Ban”?  It was just a ban on semi-automatic firearms, but calling them “assault weapons” brings a lot more fear and panic to the ignorant public, don’t you think?

What’s even more interesting is that anti-gun organizations wish to take it a step further by banning any guns with certain “dangerous features.”  Apparently, a bolt that holds a bayonet or a certain hand grip is so deadly that it must be banned.  These people want to talk about common sense, but how is it common sense to think lives will be saved by banning ergonomic features?  They know it won’t!  But this is an incremental step to more gun control.

If you’re against guns, that’s fine.  But for someone to say that they are “pro gun” but “against assault weapons” is absurdly ignorant.  What they’re essentially saying is that they are “pro gun” but against anything that the government deems “inappropriate.”

Robert Sagona

This letter was published in The Towerlight (30 March 2009), p. 4.

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