Jean A. Haney – 4/17/09

This page was last updated on April 18, 2009.

Automatic weapons should be illegal; Jean A. Haney; Beaver County Times; April 17, 2009.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“I completely agree with Wednesday’s letter to the editor about the private ownership of assault rifles or any military type gun (‘Politicians and NRA had a role in deaths’).

“If a person feels he needs this type of weapon to protect his property, then there must be something illegal, immoral or unlawful going on at that property.”

[RWC] What about the person’s life?

“I have no problem with people owning small handguns or hunting rifles, but owning automatic or semi-automatic weapons should be illegal.”

[RWC] Given this sentence, I’ll go out on a limb and guess Ms. Haney doesn’t have a clue what she’s writing about. I suspect Ms. Haney is basing her position on what she’s read in other opinion pieces.

First, Ms. Haney claims “owning … semi-automatic weapons should be illegal” but also says she has “no problem with people owning small handguns.” That’s a contradiction since small handguns are semi-automatic (one shot per trigger pull).

Second, Mr. Poplawski could have done what he did with a small handgun and a hunting rifle. Remember, the first two officers were inside the house within a few feet of Mr. Poplawski.

Third, the civilian purchase of new fully automatic weapons has been illegal since 1986. Fully automatic weapons registered by civilians before 1986 are legal, however, and can be transferred to other civilians. Further, it’s illegal to convert a semi-automatic weapon to automatic.

Fourth, laws don’t stop people like Mr. Poplawski from obtaining any weapon they want. They only top law-abiding citizens. For example, Wearing a bulletproof vest during the commission of a crime is illegal. That law didn’t stop Mr. Poplawski from wearing a bulletproof vest. News reports indicated that without the vest, shots fired by Officer Mayhle that hit Poplawski likely would have killed him and saved the lives of Officers Mayhle and Kelly

“What happened to those Pittsburgh policemen was horrible, and we should all pray for their families. It happened once and could happen again to policemen trying to do their duty.

“No one deserves to be ambushed as these men were. Pray for peace in our neighborhoods as well as those overseas.”