Dear Mr. Exum,
From afar where I moved after my formative teen years in Chattanooga, and maintaining in your delightful city many good friends from high school albeit long ago, I read chattanoogan.com often to keep up with goings on there. So I am amazed, if not amused, by the recent argument of letter writer John Masters about why he needs a semi-automatic rifle. It’s to combat the federal government should it take up arms against its own citizenry in an act of anti-Constitutional tyranny...the troops of said government possessing a similar weapon.
This is not a solid argument for ownership of multi-round rifles; it crumbles to dust upon a mere moment’s reflection. To wit - and if this entirely unlikely conspiratorial fantasy should ever be realized - here’s in truth what our government, implemented by multi-thousand-troop ground, air and sea divisions, brigades and battalions, possesses to swarm and overwhelm civilian defenders in Chattanooga and its environs. Tanks loaded with a massive main artillery gun and up to three high-caliber machine guns. Attack helicopters armed with rotating canon fire and air-to-surface missiles. Jet fighters equipped with huge machine guns, air-to-surface missiles and bombs. Since my former home city is on a renowned and lovely waterway, naval river patrol boats boasting several powerful machine guns and small ship-to-ship and ship-to-ground missiles.
Some people think there are legitimate arguments for his multi-shot rifle. Personally I think not, unless he is a very bad shot when deer hunting. But the quaint vision of battling the modern-day U.S. armed forces rifle-to-rifle across broad green fields and in deep Southern forests is not one. To quote him directly in his letter: “Only an idiot would bring a knife to a gun fight.”
Bill Canup
Westlake Village, CA
P.S. I delight in your own casual but potent power with the written word. I was a newspaperperson myself.