ALBA FARFAGLIA, San Clemente
A Newtown resident, Monte Frank, recently went to Congress to promote banning assault weapons.
Ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines; make background checks on anyone who wants to buy a gun mandatory; make gun-trafficking a federal crime; enact severe penalties for “straw purchases” of firearms.
Why would any law-abiding citizen not be in agreement with this? No one is banning all guns, just military-style weapons, and the other restrictions are common-sense.
Recently, five countries, including Australia, Germany, and Japan, have advisories for people traveling to the United States because of the high incidents of gun violence, which surpass any of the industrial countries.
This affects our economy, the tourist industry, restaurants, hotels, national parks and recreational areas, small businesses, foreign and exchange students who come here to study.
It is unreasonable to think that the Second Amendment’s “well-regulated militia” would include military-type weapons the likes of which the framers of our Constitution could not even imagine. And not just “accessible,” but “easily accessible” to anybody and everybody.
How about this? How about a compromise?
It appears to me that the gun lobbies won’t budge. They won’t even entertain the possibility of any common-sense restriction on gun ownership. And this leads me to believe that, finally, it’s all about the money.
The manufacturing of firearms is a $28 billion industry. This is what we, the American people, are up against. However, we must continue to do what is right. We must convince our representatives and senators in Congress to get military-style weapons out of the hands of individuals that are anything but members of a “well-regulated militia.”
And we must agree that the life of school children trumps billions of dollars that are made from manufacturing weapons of war.
