Bigger problems than outlawing semi-automatic rifles


I read the Jan. 18 Record-Courier editorial ("Gun control formidable challenge for Obama") and found it to be the most balanced editorial I have ever seen from either camp.

As a boy, my parents trusted me to wander about the woods, fields and along the rivers of Western Pennsylvania with my dog, Blackie, and my gun. Often, I would meet with other armed boys with cheap guns like mine, unknown adult males with new, fancy, expensive firearms, and very old men with very, very old weapons. On a hillside, we would sometimes exchange "pleasantries," share some ammunition or wild game. They would not have harmed me nor would I have harmed them.

While we talked, Hitler and Stalin were then murdering millions in Europe. Previously, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had given part of Europe to Hitler and now British delegations were in the United States to beg American sportsmen to loan their guns to Britain. You see, Britain had disarmed its citizens and now pleaded for weapons to arm their "Home Guard" before a Nazi invasion. The guns sent to Britain were never returned because the British didn't think Americans should have guns, either. Does this sound familiar?

Years later, my parents were at the train station when I went away to the military and they were at the bus station when I returned. Today my parents and old Blackie are long gone, but in their place we have drug dealers in every school, perverts in every neighborhood and the emotionally disturbed in every family and on our streets. We have behavioral psychologists teaching politicians and big business how to control your mind and your vote or to just simply send you running to the mall to buy luxuries you don't need with money that you don't have. Our government complained about "brain-washing" when only the Chinese did it, but now it borrows money from the Chinese instead.

Don't we have bigger problems than outlawing semi-automatic target rifles and condemning law-abiding American citizens for the actions of a half-dozen misfits?

John J. Hromyak, Ravenna Township

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  • Just take a look at what is happening in Syria and Libya. They were almost wiped out because they had now weapon to fight the dictator’s army. They had to beg foreign countries to give them arms. Take our arms **** no.

  • The human mind needs to be changed, not more laws and regulations. This is a spiritual problem, not a physical one. Jeremiah 17:9 The heart(mind)is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it? Romans 8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be . What would the nation be like if we just kept the commandments listed in Matthew 22:36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? V.37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. V.38 This is the first and great commandment. V.39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. All of mans laws cannot change the mind, or solve our problems. Only the Spirit of God can change our way of thinking. Unless we repent and ask forgiveness of our national sins, this country will continue to have grave troubles. Change human nature, not the 2nd Amendment- A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.

  • Hey Jermann, "Charles Joseph Whitman (June 24, 1941 – August 1, 1966) was an engineering student and former Marine, who killed 14 people and wounded 32 others in a mass shooting rampage located in and around the Tower of the University of Texas in Austin on the afternoon of August 1, 1966. Three people were shot and killed inside the university's tower and 11 others were murdered after Whitman fired at random from the 28th-floor observation deck of the Main Building. Whitman was shot and killed by Austin Police Officer Houston McCoy." " He did all that with a bolt action rifle with a 3 round magazine. Tell me again how dangerous "assault weapons" are. Your "restrict weapons that kill people quickly comment" is about the dumbest thing i have ever heard.

  • Yes, we have bigger problems - like paranoid gun-toting fogies with sketchy recollections of history. Look, nobody is trying to completely disarm the American public. I haven't read any proposed bill to send all guns to Britain, so this doesn't "sound familiar". But with "the emotionally disturbed in every family and on our streets", can you see no reason to restrict weapons that can quickly kill multiple people?

  • Wow! This letter hit the nail solidly on the head!