To the Editor:
I am writing in support of the stand taken by contributors published in your Jan. 21 and 29 editions about law enforcement’s resistance to supporting the new assault weapons ban. These writers were correct on all points.
Law enforcement officials cannot selectively decide which laws to uphold. Refusal to enforce the law encourages citizens to ignore it as well. To quote one writer, “Their public stance makes a mockery of obeying the law and causes disrespect not only of this law, but for all laws. The statistics she cites are sobering. Guns are now the leading cause of deaths among children? I was initially incredulous, but I looked it up, and this FACT is corroborated by numerous reliable sources. Moreover, the CDC’s most recent statistics report that 124 people PER DAY die from gunshots in the U.S. Expressed differently, this amounts to completely obliterating a town the size of Elmhurst or Belleville! In just the first month of this year, we have endured 48 mass shootings.
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We must re-think our stance on our right to bear firearms. Assault weapons are not essential to personal safety, nor do they serve any other practical purpose. I am not calling on Americans to confine themselves to the muzzle-loaders that were state of the art when the Constitution was signed, but there must be a limit to how we interpret the intent of the Founding Fathers when they wrote the Second Amendment. Otherwise, why not legalize grenade-launchers? Mortars? Cannon?
I wonder if law enforcement officers take into account the likelihood that if they are called on to subdue an errant gun-toter, their job will be immeasurably harder and more dangerous if that individual is armed with one of these uber-lethal weapons? Another writer noted that an Illinois uniformed officer was quoted saying that the assault weapons ban was “the beginning of the end of our democracy” — he then went on to say that the officer’s refusal to enforce this law is the real beginning of the end of our democracy. In fact, the deluge of mass shootings suggests that that event may already be underway.
Jim Renshaw
Carbondale