Editor:

Our forefathers did an awesome job of developing a document that was applicable for their time and would support our way of government for many years. They didn’t say we couldn’t make some laws and regulations to deal with things that were invented in the future. A reader pointed out that many guns can be altered to use smaller magazines, less powerful bullets, etc. They forgot to mention that many people prefer to use them the way they come, with high-capacity magazines and much more powerful bullets, and a very serious problem is how easy it is to convert them from semi-auto to full automatic. The military and police are the only ones who need that type of weapon. There are plenty of firearms available which are very fine for hunting, long-range target shooting, etc. No one should need more than five rounds to kill an animal or to hit a target. And they certainly don’t need a gun that can spew out dozens of bullets and kill dozens of people in a couple of minutes.

Of course, that is why the criminals like them so much. We don’t have to make it easy for criminals by having thousands of that type of weapon hanging on the walls of gun shops and lying around in homes and cars free for the taking.

Instead of saying “They will never, never take away our guns” and using their arm-twisting and money to block every single thing that is proposed to try to control gun violence, the NRA should have the guts to sit down and help develop some commonsense gun-control laws. That is not changing the Constitution or taking away “the right to bear arms.” It is simply showing some concern about all the lives being lost in gun violence. In our current world, we have to deal with machine guns, chemical weapons, atomic bombs, etc. Instead of trying to help solve the problem, they contribute to digging the hole deeper and saying they have the right to more shovels.

Tom Townley

Mancos