Letter: Long past due to change laws on guns in America

From: Bob Miller

Columbus

Thank you for speaking from the heart after the massacre on Valentine’s Day. I have been thinking about what happened to our children that day and to the many before them that found a similar fate. Over the years, I know we could have done more. We can’t wait any longer. Now is the time to take the tool of the deranged off our streets.

Australia set the gold standard for gun control. In 1996, 28-year-old Martin Bryant finished his lunch in the seaside resort of Port Arthur and pulled out a semi-automatic rifle. In the first 15 seconds of his attack, he killed 12 and wounded 10. In all, he shot more than 50 people in six locations, killing 35. The worst mass shooting in Australia’s history capped a violent decade of mass shootings that killed nearly 100 – and Australians had had enough.

Twelve days later, Prime Minister John Howard – a conservative who had just been elected with the help of gun owners – pushed through new gun-control laws and the most ambitious gun-buyback program in recent memory. The gun-buyback program collected nearly 650,000 assault weapons and 50,000 additional weapons, about one-sixth of the national stock. Fewer guns on the street helped severely reduce the likelihood that guns could be used for a mass shooting.

The risk of dying by gunshot in Australia has fallen by more than 50 percent. The national rate of gun homicide in Australia is one-thirtieth that of the United States.

In the U.S., the NRA has called the AR-15 the “most popular rifle in America” and estimates Americans own more than 8 million of them. The AR-15 was trademarked by Colt, but since the patent on the weapon’s operating system ran out, a host of other manufacturers began making their own variants. A solution offered by the National Shooting Sports Foundation is to have AR-platform rifles referred to as modern sporting rifles, or MSRs, to avoid confusion and stem the reference to the politically loaded “assault rifle” label. A more appropriate acronym would be MMR, or mass murder rifle.

Like many others, I served my country and fought in Vietnam (1967-68). I was lucky enough to come home and am sad at how many didn’t (58,318). I feel betrayed knowing that those who sent us there knew we could never win and were willing to let us go there and die rather than admit they were wrong.

God Bless the kids back then who had the guts to stand up and say, “Enough is Enough.” It cost four of them their lives at Kent State University at the hands of the Ohio National Guard on May 4, 1970, during a protest.

God Bless the kids today saying “Never Again.” The time is long overdue for our leaders to admit they are wrong and move forward to ban assault rifles.

My thoughts and prayers are with all those who have to live the rest of their lives with only the memories of those they have lost.