Rick Notkin: 39.9 million rifles weren’t misused on Saturday

To The Daily Sun,

Regarding Dutch artist Bas van der Schot’s cartoon in today’s (July 16) Sun: seriously?

Can the anti-rights people not even wait a week before pouncing?

I’ll answer that question: no.

Why? Because the only two cards in their hands are racism and emotions. They know that rational people understand that controlling behaviors by controlling objects is futile. The only hope that the left has to sway the uniformed public is to strike after a criminal event.

Just for fun, let’s accept the estimated number of AR-pattern rifles as 44 million.

That means that 39.9 million rifles weren’t misused on Saturday.

Ignored (as usual) is the number of times that ARs were used to defend life.

Ignored (as usual) is that less than 10% of shootings are done using any type of rifle. Less scary handguns are most frequently used.

Can you imagine how much more damage might have been done if the (alleged) assassin used a rifle using a more powerful cartridge?

A piece spanning many column inches in today’s Wall Street Journal prattled on on how useless AR-type rifles are (e.g., inaccurate, only good at shorter ranges, only designed to fire many bullets as fast as possible).

If those criticisms are true, why do all of our Armed Service branches, federal agencies (including the U.S. Secret Service), and most police departments carry them?

The only person ultimately responsible for shooting Donald Trump, the firefighter, and the two other victims is the shooter.

He also could have used a vehicle, and/or the explosives found in his car and injured as many or more innocent people.

Do I have space to mention President Joe Biden’s comment “It’s time to put Trump in a bullseye?” Oh, I do. I’m old enough to remember Sarah Palin being blamed for the Giffords shooting.

Rick Notkin

Gilford