Stan Olash – 3/3/13

This page was last updated on March 4, 2013.

Missing the point; Stan Olash; Beaver County Times; March 3, 2013.

Mr. Olash wrote at least five letters since 2009. Critiques of Olash letters are here and here. Letters I did not critique are here and here.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“When will people realize that the NRA doesn’t give a damn about their rights or safety?”

[RWC] Those of us familiar with Mr. Olash’s letter-writing body of work know to expect a flame-throwing effort. In a previous letter in which he wrote of tolerance, Mr. Olash actually told people with whom he disagreed to “shut-up.”

“All their programs are a front for their main objective, the sale of firearms. They know that every time they push the paranoia garbage about the government coming to take away people’s guns they run out and buy every gun and piece of ammo available.”

[RWC] Mr. Olash needs to check out Missouri House Bill No. 545 (97th General Assembly). The proposed law says, “No person, corporation or other entity in the state of Missouri may manufacture, import, possess, purchase, sell, or transfer any assault weapon or large capacity magazine.” When you check the bill’s definition of “assault weapon,” you find few firearms don’t qualify as an “assault weapon.”

Later, the bill says:

“Any person who, prior to the effective date of this law, was legally in possession of an assault weapon or large capacity magazine shall have ninety days from such effective date to do any of the following without being subject to prosecution:

“(1) Remove the assault weapon or large capacity magazine from the state of Missouri;

“(2) Render the assault weapon permanently inoperable; or

“(3) Surrender the assault weapon or large capacity magazine to the appropriate law enforcement agency for destruction, subject to specific agency regulations.

“5. Unlawful manufacture, import, possession, purchase, sale, or transfer of an assault weapon or a large capacity magazine is a class C felony.”

So much for “paranoia garbage.”

“They work for gun manufacturers. Not the public. They say there are enough gun laws yet they use the gutless politicians they own to weaken these laws, such as background checks. We always hear about the 26 people killed in Newtown, but not about the 27th. This was the person who owned all the guns and was the first person killed, yet the NRA tells us if everyone was armed we would be safer.”

[RWC] As for “Not the public,” the NRA has somewhere between 3 and 4.5 million members.

How would a background check have prevented the Sandy Hook murders? The murderer’s mother passed her background check and Connecticut’s firearm-permitting laws are more restrictive than Pennsylvania law. In any case, the very people who acquire firearms for nefarious purposes don’t care about gun-control laws. I’ll go out on a limb and guess most criminals already violate our existing firearm laws. All more-restrictive laws will do is cut purchases by law-abiding citizens and/or turn law-abiding citizens into criminals when they bypass new laws.

I haven’t heard/seen “the NRA tell us if everyone was armed we would be safer.”

As for the first person killed, Mr. Olash failed to mention she was the murderer’s mother and was killed in her sleep. Mr. Olash is correct; being armed doesn’t help when you’re asleep and your child wants to kill you. Of course, the same applies to knives, hammers, and so on.

“Bars full of people drinking and armed, what could possibly go wrong? I am an Army vet and former hunter and not anti-gun, but I am anti-B.S.”

[RWC] Who says bar owners need to allow armed customers? Here’s another question Mr. Olash could have asked but chose not to: Bars full of people drinking and NOT armed, what could possibly go wrong? According to MADD, drunk drivers killed nearly 10,000 persons in 2011.

I read nothing to support Mr. Olash’s claim he is “anti-B.S.”