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Gun owners must accept responsibility

March 17, 2013

The pro gun lobby, lead by the NRA, continues in letters to this and other publications, to push their agenda that all gun safety legislation is designed to erode their Second Amendment rights.  Wrong, no one is considering taking away guns or restricting the rights to own guns.  The new gun laws seek to make a safer place for us all.

The pro gun groups insist that law abiding gun owners are not the problem - that the problem is with criminals.  And of course they are right, but in the next breath they assert that requiring a law abiding citizen to promptly report a lost or stolen gun is an overwhelming imposition on them.

Do they suppose that a stolen or lost (how do you lose a gun anyway?) gun is going to be used at the local range for target practice?  A stolen gun by definition is in the hands of a criminal; it is the clearly the responsibility of the former owner to notify authorities.  Some gun owners seem not to want to accept the responsibility that goes along with right to bear arms.

Guns are implements whose sole purpose is to implement deadly force. The right to use deadly force carries heavy responsibility that gun owners often seem to want to avoid. The paranoia of some gun owners leads them to oppose any attempt to reduce gun violence.It is now the time to do something, not the time to let the size of the problem overwhelm us.

Patrick Williams
Millsboro

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