LETTER: Letter-writer errs on source

To the Telegram:

In response to Peter W. Johnson’s letter about gun control — as usual he does not have his facts right.

He blames the National Rifle Association and gun companies for coining the term “assault rifle.”

Actually, the term was first used by Adolf Hitler in describing the first rifle that used a medium range cartridge, the Sturmgewehr 44.

Actually one of the first to use the term in the U.S. and has been credited with its use in this country ironically is Josh Sugarmann from Newtown, Conn., a journalist who waged a constant war against the NRA and gun owners in this country.

Sugarmann is the executive director and founder of the Violence Policy Center. In 1988, he made this statement in Assault Weapons and Accessories in America in 1988: “Assault weapons — just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms — are a new topic. The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons — anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun — can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons. In addition, few people can envision a practical use for these weapons.”

So to blame the NRA and gun manufacturers for the term “assault rifles” is false and misleading. I would also like to point out Johnson is trying to muddy the waters by trying to confuse folks by comparing semi-auto weapons with machine guns, which is not true and an often misleading ploy by anti-gun liberals.

I would also like to remind Johnson the Second Amendment is not about deer hunting; it’s about protection of one’s self and loved ones or other innocents, and protection from a tyrannical government. Our founding fathers knew what being under a tyrannical government meant as they were trying to get out from underneath England’s King George III and the British Empire.

It is not only a right under the Second Amendment but a God-given right as well. A militia is made up of the people, and they have the right to own the same weapons as the standing army does.

James Harter,

Superior

Tags: opinion, letters