by Paul Kink, Stevensville
A yes or no answer you need to know from ALL candidates for local, state or federal government leadership positions BEFORE you cast your next vote.
“Do you support a ban an assault style weapons?”
You will find this answer quite easily as you listen to or read the candidates’ positions outlined in the campaign literature stuffed in your mailbox.
As you learn the answer to this question, please remember the following testimony presented to Congress on Wednesday, June 8, 2022 by Dr. Roy Guerrero, the Uvalde, Texas pediatrician who treated juvenile gunshot victims after the elementary school mass shooting in Uvalde.
Dr. Guerrero described children who’d been shot by an 18 year old gunman and seeing the decapitated bodies of children who had been torn apart by bullets from an assault rifle. Dr. Guerrero said the AR-style rifle used in Uvalde left the killer’s victims unrecognizable.
“Two children, whose bodies had been so pulverized by the bullets fired at them, over and over again, whose flesh had been so ripped apart, that the only clue as to their identities were the blood spattered cartoon clothes still clinging to them,” Dr. Guerrero said.
Please consider this tragedy and others like it happening almost daily when you cast your next vote, and how you would feel if one of these children were yours.
Helen Sabin says
PAUL – let’s see how committed you are to stopping “Deaths” in the USA why don’t we? Or is this really about YOUR FEAR of firearms and that you have never taken time to learn about them and how many lives are SAVED each year them. Oh wait! You forget to mention that don’t you……
Shall we compare the number of deaths by firearms as opposed to abortion doctors who tear babies apart and put each arm or leg torn off a body on a tray to the side so they can be counted to make sure all parts are NOT still inside the woman’s body! Which KILLS MORE? An “assault style weapon” that NO ONE has defined to date as to what it is, not even SCOTUS, nor the ones using the “scary term” -assalut weapon – and throw it around like a foot ball as you did in your opinion piece on abortions? Hey a ballpoint pen or a fork or sharpened Philips head screwdriver can kill others so are they too “assault weapons?” Hmmmm….OK, Let’s compare:
Abortion in America: How many abortions happen per year?
According to the CDC, which uses reports from state agencies to calculate an annual abortion total, 629,898 abortions occurred in the U.S. in 2019 (the latest year for which data is available.)
Killings by firearms in the USA per year: Dec 20, 2021 Specifically, the figure amounted to 10,258, accounting for 73.7%. 6. of deaths by all categories – i.e. order, suicide, etc
Gee Paul – Over six hundred thousand abortions occur each year due to lazy men and women NOT using birth control, as opposed to slightly over ten thousand using those scary rifles that you seem to know NOTHING about. Now don’t you look silly?
OK Paul – start agitating for those of child bearing ages to stop being irresponsible and start using birth control. Then you will have the “gravitas” to speak about “scary assault weapons,” that is if you can define what that is exactly! Thank you for being concerned about deaths in the USA. OH BTW – start agitating for requiring FAT people to NOT have dessert as over 600,000 deaths occur each year from heart disease. OH and BTW Mar 2, 2022The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released its 2020 annual traffic crash data, showing that 38,824 lives were lost in traffic crashes nationwide. That number marks the highest number of fatalities since 2007. And it is about THREE TIEMES THOSE KILLED BY GUNS. HMMMMMM, maybe Paul you ought to rethink your logic and prejudices when you write foolish things like you just did about “assault weapons?”
TIM HANCOCK says
Great comments Helen…thank you!
Bill Stroud says
Gee Helen, abortion, ballpoint pens, forks, Phillips screwdrivers, desserts and cars. I can’t get pregnant but now I’ve got anxiety over writing, forking, screwing and driving to get some cheesecake. Such a thoughtful, reasonable response to Paul’s letter. (as usual)
Alan says
What is an assault style weapon? I mean, if your going to infringe on constitutional rights by banning something, you should know what that something is don’t you think? So I ask you what is an assault style weapon?