Assault weapons need to be banned

The following letter was sent to Sen. Ernie Lopez, R-Lewes, with a copy submitted to the Cape Gazette for publication.

While I applaud the passing of House Bill 300, banning and making illegal bump stocks and thank you for your support, I write to express my deep disappointment in your decision to vote no to ban assault weapons (SB 163) and no to raise the age to 21 to buy a gun in Delaware (HB 330).

I was at the march in DC so wasn’t present at the Rehoboth march where you were the only speaker who didn’t mention guns. How sadly ironic, given that the motivation behind this march had everything to do with guns and their use in the latest mass shooting.

You mentioned Delaware’s Constitution and the “expansive language” used toward an individual’s right to own firearms. I read the words and the Supreme Court decision blocking an attempt to limit the carrying of weapons into state parks. As much as I would like to see all guns out of peoples’ hands, and I feel this in my gut, I understand the right to bear arms is a constitutional right.

I am not suggesting the banning of all guns, though the NRA plays on that fear to convince their supporters that banning assault weapons equals banning all weapons. I have a friend who carries a handgun because she’s been physically assaulted and has had to have police protection. But a handgun or a hunting rifle is a far cry from an assault weapon. As for raising the age limit for gun ownership to 21? Kids can’t drink until they’re 21, but they can carry a gun? They can drink in their homes, but cannot drink in public places. Kids in hunting families can learn to handle a gun, even hunt, but they don’t need to own a gun.

You argue that it’s enough for school safety, for our safety, to keep guns out of the hands of those who are mentally ill. That’s essential, yes, but such people aren’t always diagnosed, don’t always have a record. The talk of mentally ill people being the largest pool from which these mass shooting perpetrators have come is nothing new. Each time there’s a mass shooting, there’s the same conversation.

Nevertheless, another killer (in retrospect considered mentally ill or evil) comes forward. In addition, even parents with best intentions, who are themselves healthy, can be in denial about their child’s problems, or too busy to notice, or just not aware (and certain mentally ill people can be quite capable of hiding their dangerous impulses). These parents can have guns in the home that a resourceful, even mentally ill, person could get his hands on. It’s so easy to say that people should step forward if they are at all concerned, but much harder to do, as evidenced by the continued mass shootings.

As for the other description of mass shooters, evil, I haven’t yet heard of a diagnosis for that particular state of being. I suspect there are a number of such people who are moving quite freely in our society and most likely causing a great deal of harm to many, yet somehow they aren’t checked; their malicious intent is ignored and they wreak their havoc without having a label ascribed to them that might actually lead to prevention of their actions.

As I said in my previous letter, using mental illness or evil as the explanation for these shootings seems to me a way of avoiding confronting, as you say, “the noxious and divisive argument over whether to ban or not ban certain types of weapons.” This may be a tough argument, but it’s one to have. And it’s time to rid ourselves of false equivalences or exaggerations. This is not an argument to ban all guns; it is not an argument for the repeal of the 2nd Amendment. It is simply an appeal for common sense.

Assault weapons don’t belong in the hands of any but “the military (who serve to protect our country and state) or those in law enforcement (who serve to protect their communities) who are trained not only in the weapons’ uses but in the circumstances during which they should be used.”

Sara Ford
Lewes