Emotional vs Common Sense views.
A Sunday news program, I believe ABC Face the Nation, had two guests that gave their personal take on the subject fueled by the terrible shooting in Sandy Hook, Conn. First was Sen. Feinstein and the other was NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly. The senator was passionate about her very personal agenda of a ban on assault type weapons and high capacity clips. The NYPD police commissioner stated that those types of weapons accounted for less than two percent of the shootings in his city. He stated the great majority of their problems were handguns which most were illegal. I would agree that the police commissioner spoke with facts and data, not personal emotions. The senator's desire would have little effect on the number of shootings in New York City.
“For us in New York City, and I believe in most urban centers throughout America, the problem really is concealable handguns,” Kelly said. "But the city’s real enemy is illegal handguns."
Handguns account for nearly all murders by firearm in New York City and state, data show. An analysis by the NYPD determined that assault weapons were used in just three of the 1,400 instances of gun play in the city last year.
N.D. Kennedy Sr.
Ooltewah
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First I refuse to call it "gun control," a more accurate term would be "citizen-disarmament," remember that dialog controls the conversation. Citizen-disarmament has nothing to do with public safety but government power and growth. We all should know that pro-citizen-disarmament individuals are not willing to discuss real issues using facts and statistics, especially with something like police and FBI records. More than half the time these idiots can't even get their terminology correct when talking about guns, which if it was so important to them you'd think they would at least have an intern Google a few things.
It is the pro-citizen-disarmament's tactic to "emotionalize" arguments as its their only hope. The fact that NY city has a handgun ban and yet an illegal object is still being used in illegal activity should not be shocking to anyone with a brain. Citizen-disarmament will do nothing to curb illegal gun use, only infringe on the rights of us who choose not to break the law. Those who lawfully enjoy using them for any reason, the 2nd amendment did not specify that "we the people" justify our ownership. If any of this wasn't 100 percent true every biased media outlet across the country would be spouting statistics of how the 94'-04' citizen-disarmament worked.
Chris Sanders
Hixson
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Anybody with an opinion in a discussion involving the rights of others, particularly those elected to public office, should at least have a smattering of the facts. It's so frustrating to me to hear all of these "high capacity/assault style" buzz words from people in control who've likely never held a bb gun in their hand.
Sure, an AR15 in the wrong hands must be prevented. However, the cheap, illegal pistol is clearly enemy number one. Always has been. Thank you, Mr. Kennedy.
Savage Glascock, Sr.
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With all the gun ban hysteria being peddled in the news media today, here is a short primer to those who give their opinion without the general knowledge of the very weapons they are proposing to ban.
First of all, modern semi- automatic rifles and pistols fire one round per one pull of the trigger, they are not machine guns which will fire until the ammunition is exhausted or the trigger is released.
Second, their ammunition is fed from a “magazine” and not a “clip,” the only common rifle or pistol in America today that takes a clip is the .30 cal M1 Garand which uses an eight round en bloc clip which is ejected from the rifle when the last round is fired.
It is also a semi-automatic rifle that was used by the United States military in WWII.
Thirdly, the vast majority of the rifles that are owned by every day Americans are not “assault rifles” but are better known as “Modern Sporting rifles” which are again, only semi-automatic.
The term “assault rifle” is an English translation of the German word “Sturmgewehr” or storm rifle which described a STG-44 rifle used by the Wehrmacht in the last days of WWII.
It was a fully automatic selective fire rifle similar to an actual AK-47 not the semi-automatic AKM which are commonly owned in the United States today.
All “assault rifles” are classed as a machine gun and are heavily regulated and have been since the middle thirties.
So in closing, “Modern Sporting rifles,” while they do resemble military weapons in appearance, are not weapons of war but instead are no different than other “civilian” semi-automatics.
John T. Sanders