EDITOR:

“Cooling the mass shooting fever” (Aug. 22, 2019)

Once again Andy Heller blessed us with his Chicken Little, knee-jerk liberal reaction to another topic, hoping to get everyone riled up with misinformation about gun control. He should stick to his mediocre attempt at comedy with his op-ed pieces. And, I take offense to his accusation that I, a Republican, am not a reasonable person.

Number One on his to do list is to ban assault rifles. Assault rifles encompass a large category of semi-automatic weapons. In today’s world, assault rifle always brings to mind the AR-15 semi-automatic sporting rifle. Most people who don’t know the difference assume that AR stands for automatic rifle, or assault rifle. It stands for ArmaLite, the company that developed this style of rifle. It fires one round for each pull of the trigger. It is not an automatic firearm, or a machine gun. Automatic firearms have been illegal since 1934. Mislabeling AR-15 sporting rifles as “assault rifles” is a strategy used by gun banners to further their attempt to strip the millions of legal gun owning Americans of their rights.

As for his idea of class action lawsuits against all gun manufacturers and to hold them accountable for the damage they’ve done to society, I say “why stop there?” In Monday’s Daily Press (Aug. 26, 2019) an article titled “Campaign targets impaired drivers,” The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says 10,874 people died on our highways in 2017 due to drunk drivers. So, to use Andy’s logic, should we also sue liquor distillers? How about automobile manufacturers?

If you take firearms away from law-abiding Americans, the bad guys will still have guns.

Ed Brown

Rapid River