Gun is an inanimate object
In reply to several letters to the editor in the wake of the mass shooting in Orlando, Fla., I offer this explanation about guns.
The problem isn’t the AR-15 rifle, but the problems of the shooters. Blaming an inanimate object for the shooting is like accusing an automobile of causing the death of innocent people by a drunken driver.
The shape of the rifle doesn’t make it dangerous. It is a semiautomatic rifle, meaning it fires only one round per trigger pull. It isn’t an automatic rifle, which fires multiple rounds per trigger pull.
The only people who would be affected by banning the AR-15 rifle are law-abiding people.
Jerry Tregembo
Daisytown
At last, some brave members of Congress who were disgusted with inaction to put some minimal control on gun purchases took action with their sit-in last week.
They may have been breaking some procedural rules by holding the sit-in, but they are speaking for constituents like me who are sick and tired of seeing people gunned down every day and every place imaginable – schools, basketball courts, parks, porches, backyards and houses.
Of course, people identified as terrorists should not be allowed to buy guns, and neither should the mentally ill. I am convinced some shooters identify themselves as being with ISIS to justify their need to kill lots of people for fame and glory, and they don’t really care if someone they are shooting at has a gun. They will kill as many people as they can anyway. They want to die.
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan was elected to protect his constituents, so he should do something about this insane gun culture in our country. He seems to ignore the first part of the Second Amendment, which mentions “a well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state.” Giving guns and licenses to anyone who goes into a store, flea market or gun show does not seem to be well-regulated anything.
Mary Lou Burger
Washington