This page was last updated on December 28, 2012.
Muzzle some guns; Gary R. Marshall; Beaver County Times; December 28, 2012.
A previous letter from Mr. Marshall was entitled “Health care law helps curb Medicare spending.”
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“Every politician from the city councilmen to the president of the United States should be forced to view pictures of the 26 victims of the Newtown massacre and see what our inactivity on gun control as a nation causes.
“When the Second Amendment was written the muzzle loader was the weapon of choice. Had the shooter at the Sandy Hook Elementary School been using a muzzle loader I’m sure there would not have been 20 6- and 7-year-old children shot multiple times. There is no reason for a man or women to own a semiautomatic assault rifle, a gun with the sole purpose to kill human beings, or a handgun with a 30-round clip.”
[RWC] I believe Mr. Marshall needs a refresher course on the purpose of the Second Amendment. Hint: The Second Amendment is not about hunting.
“The time has come to, at the very least, put limits on these types of weapons and requirements for a full and comprehensive background check on any and all gun purchases. If your response is it’s people that kill people, than [sic] don’t we have an obligation to society to be certain that someone buying a gun is a responsible citizen?”
[RWC] It appears Mr. Marshall did no research before he wrote this letter. According to Wikipedia, “The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) is a point-of-sale system for determining eligibility to purchase a firearm in the United States of America. Federal Firearms License (FFL) holders are generally required by law to use the NICS to determine if it is legal to sell a firearm to a prospective purchaser. The NICS determines if the buyer is prohibited from buying a firearm under the Gun Control Act of 1968. It is linked to the National Crime Information Center and the Interstate Identification Index among other databases maintained by the FBI.”
The states have various background-check laws. Pennsylvania requires state-licensed sellers to perform background checks using the Pennsylvania Instant Check System operated by the Pennsylvania State Police. Depending on the firearm, private sellers must use a licensed dealer to make a sale and the dealer must perform a background check as he would if he were the seller.
“We cannot procrastinate on this issue any longer. These types of occurrences are happening on almost a weekly basis.”
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