To the Editor:

I believe a recent letter to the Editor misrepresented Democrats and gun control.

The Democrats’ sit-in was neither “thoughts and prayers” nor were they upholding their oath to protect America, nor were they serving their constituents, nor were they doing what is right. Their actions were to draw attention away (by the sycophant press) from the real problem. The real problem that is ignored and quite possibly aided by this regime is Islamic jihad terrorism. If they really wanted to uphold their oath to protect America, to serve their constituents, and to do what is right they would address this.

Instead they create a straw man and blame the NRA. Since the NRA’s founding in 1871, how many mass shootings have been committed by an NRA member? Or they blame guns. How many guns all by themselves have risen up, aimed, and fired in a mass shooting?

They also say we should do what the Australians did. As reported by National Review Oct 2, 2015 in their article titled Australia’s 1996 Gun Confiscation Didn’t Work, “The Australian gun-homicide rate had already been quite low and had been steadily falling in the 15 years prior to the Port Arthur massacre. And while the mandatory buyback program did appear to reduce the rate of accidental firearm deaths, Baker and McPhedran found that the gun buy-back and restrictive legislative changes had no influence on firearm homicide in Australia.” Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/425021/australia-gun-control-obama-america

They try to make us believe 90 percent of our citizens favor universal background checks. Liberal Democrats pick numbers out of the air with no proof, but that is beside the point. We already have universal background checks. Since the establishment of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) in 1998, federal law has required firearm dealers to conduct computerized background checks on all individuals to whom they sell, trade, or otherwise transfer firearms, regardless of whether the transfers take place at gun stores or GUN SHOWS. The checks determine whether a prospective purchaser is prohibited under federal law from possessing firearms or ammunition.

The progressives say assault weapons should be banned. It seems that there is a lot of confusion as to the difference between military rifles and those designed for civilian ownership, especially because of the language often used to describe the latter. The most popular terms to describe the weapons at the center of the recent gun control debate are “military-style” and “assault.” These words have long been used to describe civilian firearms like the AR-15, but it is an inappropriate association that is deliberately being made to “demonize” the guns.

Is an AR-15 an assault rifle? No. Does the “AR” in AR-15 stand for “assault rifle”? No, it doesn’t. In fact, it doesn’t stand for “automatic rifle” either, as many might think. AR actually stands for ArmaLite rifle. ArmalLite is the name of the company that first developed it in the 1950s. A radio producer, Stu Burguiere, stated, “they are targeting these weapons because they think the public is confused enough that they can get away with it — and they are.”

So what is an assault weapon? There is a small yet simultaneously big distinction. Assault weapons are frearms for use by the military and are able to shoot continuously with one pull of the trigger, machine-gun style. Civilian firearms, on the other hand, only allow one shot per trigger pull.

The founding fathers drafted the Second Amendment with protection of the citizens and their freedoms in mind. Without the Second Amendment there is no way to resist the government, voiding all other amendments. It’s the only safeguard we have to protect us from a tyrannical government. Look at all countries in trouble with dictators: they have absolute gun bans.

Nelson Hack

Mount Gilead

Dems get it wrong