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Posted
Nov. 1, 2002
| Guns
Must Now, More Than Ever, Be Registered |
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To the editor:
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| Last week the killing spree that nearly paralyzed our whole
region came to an end. In the midst of it, NRA spokesmen pleaded
that it would be improper to discuss gun control and to politicize
these fearful events. Nevertheless, congressmen once again
spoke out calling for the establishment of a ballistics registry.
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| Predictably, the NRA declared that this would not work since
ballistics could be altered. This was all rather strange when
one considers that the FBI, the ATF and local law agencies
were all working overtime to compare and trace the ballistic
information they found in the sniper shootings. |
| Within days after the killing of the snipers' 10 victims
and maiming of three more innocent people, an angry teenager
shot four people in Oklahoma, killing two of them. Then, an
angry student killed two professors at a nursing school in
Arizona. These terrible events represent only the most public
of the more than 30,000 deaths suffered from firearms each
year. And this does not include the tens of thousands of seriously
wounded and paralyzed gun victims who must be cared for largely
with public funds--your tax dollars. |
| The NRA says that guns don't kill--people do. They say we
have our Second Amendment rights to consider. This is no more
true than that ballistic fingerprinting is useless. The Second
Amendment only guarantees that the militia--the National Guard--has
the right to be armed. |
| The answer is clear. Just as our automobiles are registered
and licensed, all guns can and should be registered and licensed.
Only then will we begin to reduce the toll of killing and
maiming in which the common denominator is the ready availability
of these killing machines. |
| Roger Lowen |
| Reston |
Copyright © 2003 The Herndon Publishing
Company
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