U.S. Assault Weapon Laws

Re “Outgunned: The Holes in America’s Assault Weapon Laws,” by Jeff Brazil and Steve Berry, series, Aug. 24-27:

What a surprise! California’s gun control laws are ineffective (“Crackdown on Assault Weapons Has Missed Mark,” Aug. 24). What’s next, a shocking expose declaring that our drug control laws aren’t working either? The Times and other gun control supporters just don’t get it. It isn’t the weapons or the drugs that are the problem, it’s the people who use them. Stop your whining and join the National Rifle Assn. in supporting long prison sentences for those who use guns during crimes.

JOHN W. JAY

Huntington Beach

* * The ban on assault weapons has failed for two obvious reasons. First, the law-abiding citizens who own assault rifles have resisted this government-imposed prohibition as an infringement on their rights the same way other prohibitions have been resisted in the past, and second, the criminal element couldn’t give a hoot about any gun control laws that they have no intention of following any more than any other law.

Your series on assault weapons is full of anecdotes, emotional appeals and “authoritative” quotes from gun control groups, but does little to shed any light on the problem.

DON HEADLAND JR.

Morro Bay

* * Please, please, please! When you offer opinions, please put them in the Op-Ed section.

Also, the repeated use of the term “assault weapons” in the Aug. 24 piece is misleading. Aside from the fact that “assault weapon” is a misnomer fabricated by the press, such a term should reasonably apply to weapons that are used by the military to carry out assaults. Those weapons are either fully automatic or selective-fire by design. Guns that simply look like those weapons but do not operate as the military’s weapons operate should not be grouped with them.

ROBERT H. PENOYER

Monterey Park

* * More to the point, the first installment of your series has missed the mark by several radians, as summed up by your “most recent” example: “A family of six was strafed . . . by gang members.” Of course, these gang members often seem to be defending very profitable drug-financed turf, as previously reported by The Times.

Your real target should be the relationship between drug profits and the organized sociopaths who mindlessly murder and maim contributing members of society in defense of “turf.” And while you’re at it, take a hard look at how illicit drug use among L.A.’s ruling elite helps subsidize the gang mayhem your series should focus on.

DEAN W. BUEHLER

Corona

* * Cheers for your article on assault weapons. It’s about time that the issues of violent crime are addressed. The right to carry arms does not imply a right to kill people. When the Constitution was framed there was no thought about people running around with automatic weapons, firing wildly in an effort to successfully commit a crime. The Supreme Court has ducked this issue long enough.

SION COLVIN

Woodland Hills

* * Thanks for your superb series on assault weapons. No thanks to Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, whose seeming willful neglect of the lawful enforcement of prohibitions against these weapons suggests two explanations (Aug. 25).

Either he is an extremist ideologue irrationally married to the idea that any gun, even one designed to kill masses of people with maximum efficiency, should be available to the public at large; or is it possible that Lungren cynically advocates for this madness in reciprocity for the campaign funds the NRA will provide, along with its bellicose chest-beating constituency? Either way, Lungren is shamefully unfit to hold public office. How many have been or will be killed, crippled or mutilated in consequence of Lungren’s policies? He should resign. Now.

LOUIS J. VAN DEN BERG

Riverside

* * Thank you for your article detailing Lungren’s consistent and appalling record of thwarting laws against assault weapons. From delaying deadlines to illegally failing to ban copycat weapons, it is abundantly clear to whom he demonstrates actual commitment, that is, the merchants of death who sell these products and the gangs who fire them. The outrage of district attorneys and law enforcement associations is easily understood.

How much blood is on Lungren’s hands, and why doesn’t he care?

DAN SILVER

Los Angeles

* * Your article on “guns are fun” aficionados (Aug. 26) was informative and comprehensive. Pity we can’t turn the clock back, allowing them to experience what real firepower actually does to human flesh as they advance into a World War I-type barrage. There would be plenty of shooting for everybody and, after leaving half their number shredded on the barbed wire, the remainder of these target-thrashing devotees could then spend an instructive month cowering in a waterlogged trench.

Under continuous bombardment, but with their precious ammunition slung around their necks to keep it dry, of course, the survivors could then dodge thousands of pieces of red-hot metal whizzing through the air, while repelling an attack launched by fanatics just like themselves. Gee, ain’t war swell! And playing at it is even better!

JOE MIZRAHI Granada Hills * * A common factor running through your assault weapons series is that the individual tragedies cited invariably revolve around issues of criminal misuse, not of lawful possession. The simple truth is, criminals who commit gun crimes don’t obtain guns legally.

Banning possession of semiautomatic firearms by law-abiding citizens will do nothing to change this. The results of such a ban would merely guarantee criminals an unarmed populace to exploit at will.

DAVID CODREA

Redondo Beach

* * Assault weapons are relatively harmless until they are loaded. It is obvious that it would be nearly impossible at this time to control the number of weapons. It would, however, be possible to control the manufacture and sale of the ammunition the weapons require.

Let’s keep in mind that “guns don’t kill people, bullets do!”

DEANE BOTTORF

Corona del Mar

* * Your propaganda series demonizing the defensive semiautomatic firearm and lawful private ownership is a testimony to your twisted agenda to politically inspire the revocation of the 2nd Amendment and its protection against slavery and tyranny. May God have mercy on your souls as you attempt to sell us all down the river.

WILLIAM LOLLI

Escondido

* * Re “Australia’s Answer to Carnage: A Strict Law,” Aug. 27: Typical liberal, superficial, feel-good approach. The Port Arthur massacre was a tragedy, performed by a sick, disturbed person. The law-abiding citizen suffers the consequences.

“Our off-the-chart gun violence” is a result of soft-on-criminals attitudes, the destruction of American family values and “if it feels good, do it” (the ‘60s crowd), among other left-wing points of view.

Criminals in Australia will still have guns. They will just have to steal more to pay black market prices.

MIKE ALLEN Acton