Local opinion: Weapons of mass destruction AKA assault weapons

I am a Vietnam veteran and fired M-16, 60 Caliber and 50 Caliber machine guns. The difference is in the power of the shells and the number of rounds that can be fired without reloading. These weapons are and were created for mass killing. What else is relevant about guns?

I know of three high school classmates that shot themselves. My daughter had a good friend that wanted to make a statement and used a shotgun. In my hometown in Wyoming, I was close to a family, and there was a time when the father was beating his wife, which caused the youngest son to use a shotgun to kill his father. In 1969, while in Vietnam, there was an article in the Stars and Stripes about a family killing in my hometown. The family lived less than a mile from my home. The youngest of two brothers bludgeoned his older brother to death.

Then the son went into his house and with a .22 rifle shot his grandfather and his mother and father when they came home from work. I imagine that every reader of this paper has similar stories.

From my experience, anyone with a gun can use it to kill strangers, family, or themselves. Some years back, I heard a report that Wyoming has the highest per capita gun ownership, followed with the highest per capita suicide rate.

As a veteran, I know that daily about 20 veterans die from suicide.

How many is that for the past 10 years — 365x10x20 is 73,000. The how is not reported, but almost all suicides are from guns. The military doesn’t allow active duty to carry weapons on base.

There are options for gun owners. You want to fire a machine gun, go to a gun club. The guns are stored onsite only. You don’t own guns that are made for mass killing. Growing up in Wyoming, I was a hunter and target shooter and enjoyed the experience. I sold my guns in 1999 in part because it is too simple to pull the trigger. And after Vietnam, I thought it insane that I could buy an assault weapon (AR-15) that had a higher capacity magazine than I had in Vietnam.

I make the argument that only guns without magazines are legal. Magazines provide the capacity for mass killing. There is the opinion that people kill not guns.

My opinion, having fired machine guns, is that guns change people. I have the power to kill and make a statement, and no one is going to forget what I did, and no one is going to bully me, and I don’t like a race/religion/etc.

Assault weapons are just that — for assault!