As you read this, please remember where I sit as I write -- in the reddest state in the nation. Following the horrible shooting at Sandy Hook School in Newtown, CT, last week I decided to write my two Senators: Hatch and Lee. As I was sitting at the dining room table searching for their addresses the local newscast included a story about how upset gun owners in Utah are because their right to purchase semi-automatic, military style weapons might be in jeopardy High volumes of semi-automatic assault rifles were flying out the doors of gun stores in this state. One man said defiantly to the reporter, "They can't take away my Second Amendment right to own an assault rifle!" I don't believe the Second Amendment says anything about assault weapons, but I don't believe either that he (or any of his friends or family) is interested in constitutional definitions.
In the simple task of trying to write to my Senators I gained a valuable insight. On Senator Hatch's list of email topics that I was asked to choose from there was "gun control" and Senator Lee's list had "gun rights." My choice was to have an opinion on rights or control. People either have the right to carry any kind of weapon they can get their hands on or the same weapons need to be controlled. I don't believe anyone has the right to carry a weapon that, in the wrong hands, can kill twenty children in a matter of minutes. Back in 1993, on July 1st, the law firm shooting that inspired Senator Feinstein to write the original assault weapons ban legislation, tragically occurred in the halls of my former employer. I knew some of the people gunned down in their offices. I know what assault weapons can do. I know how they take life within a matter of seconds. No one has the right to carry a weapon that can cause this kind of irrevocable, devastating damage. No one.
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