Dear Editor:
“If it walks like a duck, sounds like a duck, smells like a duck and looks like a duck, then it must be a duck”.
The AR-15 is an assault rifle, and no matter what Snell and his Canadian Rifle Association/National Rifle Association (CRA/NRA) supporters say, that weapon is dangerous, and the vast majority of Canadians don’t want them in our society.
Mr. Snell fails to mention that the NRA has been working hard to prevent any meaningful gun legislation being introduced by state and federal authorities.
They always cite the Second Amendment right to bear arms, but fail to mention that they oppose background checks, even for anyone listed on terrorists’ watch lists, or to impose legislation on gun shows where anyone can buy weapons without any background checks.
The NRA is in the business of selling fear and selling weapons, and using fear mongering instead of logic to imply that gun registration is the next step by the government to imposing dictatorial rule like the Nazis in Germany and the Communists in Russia. That is like equating apples to oranges.
We live in a civilized society where we are expected to register for many things, like registering to vote, registering our insurance policies in order to obtain our vehicle licenses, registering our certifications so that we can become doctors, lawyers, teachers, pilots, etc. Do we want these professions to be unlicensed and unregulated?
So what if Mr. Snell doesn’t want to fill-out his census form. Big deal!
The sovereignists, the neo-Nazis, the KKK and other white supremacists groups also don’t want to be governed by the same rules as the rest of us.
Mr. Snell, like the CRA/NRA and several members of Harper’s government, wants us to believe that the AR-15 and other military-style weapons are safe, and they should be sold in Canada.
Tell that to the victims of mass shootings in America where, on average, a mass shooting occurs every day (a mass shooting in America means at least four people are shot, injured or killed per day).
Australia banned them and most western European countries have banned them as well.
In Switzerland and Israel, citizens can carry them, but they are part of organized, regulated militias, unlike in America where there are dozens of unregulated heavily armed militia groups.
The NRA fails to mention that in the Second Amendment a “regulated militia be maintained for the security of a free state”.
Seven states have enacted laws preventing the sale and ownership of assault rifles like the AR-15 and AK-47s, and the US Supreme Court have upheld their rights to do so.
Other states, but not in the South, are planning to do the same since the US federal government can’t do it because of the opposition by the NRA and by the Republican Party (the conservative party in America).
George E. Thatcher
Trochu, Ab.
