Registration of Assault Guns

Welcome to 1942, not 1991. Not since a hysterical government looking for a scapegoat minority has an entire group been declared criminal with the stroke of a pen. In 1942, authorities declared thousands of Japanese to be enemies of the state. On Jan. 1, 1991, by a one-vote majority and the signature of a turn-coat governor’s pen, more than 80,000 Californians became criminals. Why? Because they continue to possess as little as two pounds of steel, aluminum and plastic without the government’s permission. Will we wait for the knock on the door the way the Japanese did? Will we have to find secret shooting ranges the way women used to have to find back-alley abortionists?

I own an M-1 carbine made by Iver-Johnson. I can go out on the desert and bust tin cans any day. If I owned the exact same gun made by Plainfield Machine Co. and took it out to the desert, I would be guilty of a felony punishable by up to three years in the state prison. People who batter wives and deal drugs do less time.

Louis L’Amour, holder of the Medal of Freedom and foremost Western author, makes the situation clear in his novel “Bendigo Shafter.” “We in America believe we have only to pass a law and everything will be changed, but nothing is changed. People only obey a law the majority have already decided to obey, and it must be a very large majority.” Gun control does not work in New York City or Washington. Why should it work here?

WOODROW J. HUGHES, Northridge