Editor:
A reader asked, "What is an assault weapon?" The dictionary defines "assault" as "a violent attack" and "unlawful attempt to do physical harm to another." My definition (not "official") of assault weapons are guns with high capacity magazines designed specifically for one purpose and that is to kill people.
Assault weapons are not particularly good or efficient for anything else. They are poor hunting guns since usually the bullets are made to tear up what they hit. And if you need more than three or four shots to kill an animal, maybe what you really need are some hunting and target shooting lessons. They are poor for use in the sport of target shooting since usually the object is to hit the bullseye. Hopefully, you don't need to spray the target with bullets to accomplish that. Assault weapons don't make for very good collectibles since of course there are millions/billions of them out there in the world. They are poor personal protection weapons since they are difficult to conceal and, without good and routine training, dangerous to use. There are many fine rifles and handguns available that are made specifically for hunting, target shooting, collecting, protection, etc.
In case you haven't noticed, the weapons used by the military and police are assault weapons. If you have ever been in the military and been in actual combat, then you would know very well the horrible things that assault weapons can do. Our forefathers worked very hard and spent a lot of time developing our Constitution. It documented many laws and "rights" that would govern our democracy. They were appropriate for the situations and conditions of that time and worked very well for many years. But starting around 50 years ago, many Americans started twisting and corrupting our Constitution to say what they believed was their "right" to do, say, have anything they wanted, as much as they wanted, anywhere, anytime, legal or not, dangerous or not. I don't think our Constitution said citizens have a "right" to have weapons made specifically to kill people or as a fun toy.
Tom Townley
Mancos
