Time to draw a line on assault weapons
The National Rifle Association recently called my house and left a recording telling my husband, an NRA member, to call his two senators right away and urge them to ignore any potential gun-control legislation that could pop up as a result of the mass shooting in Orlando, Fla. The message provided the phone numbers for both senators and the message that should be left on the voicemail at their offices.
There are more than 3 million NRA members. In the grand scheme of the U.S. population of 330 million people, that is a very small number. But they are phenomenally well-organized. If all 3 million members got calls from the NRA, and they do as they were told, that’s a lot of phone calls to Congress.
The NRA has lobbied hard against previous bills to regulate assault weapons. They started doing this in 1968 and they have been successful every time. Congress is either in the NRA’s pockets or is afraid of them. Either way, Congress now has the blood of hundreds of people on its hands.
I carried an assault rifle in the U.S. Army for 12 of my 28 years of service. It’s called an M-16, a virtual twin to the AR-15 currently available to anyone who can pass a superficial records check. These semi-automatic rifles lay down a field of large-caliber, rapidly-fired bullets designed to make those who are targeted unable to respond. The fire is suppressive and deadly, meaning those who are being shot at have no time to respond before they have to “hit the dirt” or otherwise find shelter. This weapon is designed to kill people – lots of people – and it takes a squad of trained police officers to take out a shooter using this weapon without casualties – if they are very lucky.
We need to draw a line. The Second Amendment is not violated if we ban assault weapons, because people can still bear arms. If the NRA and Congress insist that military-grade weapons cannot be banned, then, by the same logic, what is there ultimately to stop people from buying fully automatic machine guns, shoulder-fired missiles, cannons and tactical nuclear weapons? Congress needs to draw a line and ban all military-grade weapons for use by civilians. Now.
Ann K. Drach
Nineveh
Drach is a retired colonel in the U.S. Army.