In my last letter March 25, I congratulated students for their “March for our lives” protest about making schools safe.
Since then I have noticed many comments from the National Rifle Association and their [supporters] that denigrate these kids’ efforts as misguided and uninformed.
So I ask now: Just what does the NRA propose?
Or rather, why do they oppose almost all common-sense gun restrictions? (“NRA’s LaPierre: Need for background checks an ‘absolute fallacy,’ ” Washington Times, Jan. 6, 2016).
Why do they oppose enhanced background checks, closing the gun show and private sales loopholes or making gun manufacturers responsible for their products, just like auto manufacturers?
Why?
None of these restrictions would keep responsible gun owners from exercising their Second Amendment right. They just put common sense restrictions on it which the Supreme Court will likely uphold.
The ideas I mentioned are just a few of the many (not just about guns) that can be discovered by a simple search on the Internet.
No one idea will solve the problem.
The NRA, at one time, had a leader named Karl Frederick who believed in restrictions on gun ownership (“The NRA once believed in gun control,” Washington Post, Oct. 5, 2017).
Since then the NRA has become so radical that they are hardly recognizable.
In the late 1990s, under threats of lawsuits after the massacre at Columbine, Smith & Wesson tried to reform itself (“A gunmaker once tried to reform itself,” Washington Post, Feb. 27).
In response, the NRA almost drove them out of business and then pushed for legislation to ban lawsuits against the gun industry.
In the end it is apparent that the NRA does not stand for responsible gun ownership, it stands for putting more guns on our streets no matter what.
Stan Riddle,
Sequim