An Expanded Letter To Gun Sellers

My father, uncles, brothers, and myself have all served in the armed forces. Outside of combat, there is no need or use for most guns. Even then only highly-trained and supervised individuals should be using these dangerous tools. Having assault weapons and high-capacity ammo clips available to anyone else is irresponsible profiteering at best and could be considered aiding terrorists in many ways. The moral thing is to stop all sales of anything other than single-shot, manual-action-bolt rifles used for hunting and legal sports. Simply hiding behind excuses of "there's no law against it" is cowardice and doesn't make a bit of difference to those shot and killed. What would be meaningful is to lead the way by demonstrating that human lives mean more than profits.

That is a message sent to legislative representatives, gun stores, and other retailers. Since I have a bit more space and leeway here, I thought I would expand on it. First, I trust that you know "assault weapon" here refers to automatic and semiautomatic firearms. These fire multiple rounds per second and, in order to maximise their potential damage, call for large "clips" of ammunition. The specification made above for a "manual-action-bolt" would force users to eject the shell and reload the chamber themselves for each shot. I recognise this goes beyond the calls for gun licensing and mandatory background checks, which seem to be the most strenuous and abundant of late. However, I acknowledge that all of these are just precautions to slow things down which offer the illusion of protection. I'm far more interested in solutions that address actual problems than messing about with superficial glossing-over or with appearing to do something. I'd much rather just do what needs done. I am going farther because I feel the only real protection is not having a threat at all.

Guns are a danger that we manufacture. Literally.

If we stop making them and destroy the ones that exist, that actually eliminates the threat. Yes, that is "extreme" and I'm comfortable with the notion. My point really is that all firearms are obsolete, the notion that we would need to shoot each other is a barbaric relic of our past. Of course, facing this requires that we address many other facets of our society such as socioeconomic inequality, ecologically-sustainable and equitable resource management, and the prison-industrial complex. Not popular this, as it's far too comfortable not to even acknowledge them. However, there is no single answer that will eliminate our societal ills. If we are going to make a difference, we need to get serious about how we take on these subjects and accept the hard work that making improvements entails. It's high time we did so.