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Monday, Dec. 31, 2012 | 2 a.m.
Another view?
View more of the Las Vegas Sun's opinion section:
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Regarding Jerry Perchesky’s Dec. 26 letter, “Some ideas to reform gun laws”:
While in many ways I can agree with Mr. Perchesky, there are some issues to address.
I cannot agree with the idea that a single gun with a five-round capacity should be sufficient for self-protection. Suppose you are upstairs and your gun is downstairs when someone invades your home.
There are all sorts of scenarios that would support the notion that controlling the number of guns owned is not really the answer. There might be a possibility for how many guns you can carry at any given time, but even that is weak.
The second point I had difficulty with was that five-round capacity idea. I think there is some validity in trying to control high-capacity magazines, but many of these magazines have a tendency to jam and as such could provide the opportunity to clobber a rogue shooter. Another thought: Anyone walking around with a 50-round banana clip sticking out of any kind of weapon would most certainly generate some calls to 911.
In my opinion, the single most important factor is public awareness and the willingness to call in suspicious behavior. The 911 people could help by rolling a unit the minute they hear the word “gun.” There are already enough laws on the books to control illegal gun behavior — we really don’t need a police state to assure our safety.
We don't need a police state and we don't need vigilantism either.
We already have enough gun laws, what we need is for the President and Congress to enforce existing laws, uphold the Constitution and for the juveniles in the media to quit fear mongering and tell the truth. How ridiculously ignorant have we become when our own President, Dianne Feinstein and the media talk about hindering the Second Amendment on us while they are running assault weapons in Mexico that are coming back and killing Americans. How do we know the guns used recently weren't the ones they supplied inside Mexico. We will never know from the media, they have twenty different versions, pick one.
James: You make a good point about the problem of having a 5-shot pistol for protection. Go ahead, buy an automatic-firing assault rifle with five 100 round magazines. And to quote you word for word: "Suppose you are upstairs and your gun is downstairs when someone invades your home."
Counter-argument: Which are you more likely to take upstairs with you? The pistol or the assault rifle?
Perfect security is incompatible with life.