Re: “,” June 15 editorial.
Your editorial rightly says that even if people on the official terrorist watch list were banned from purchasing guns, that would not have stopped the Orlando shooter because he was no longer on the list. But this clearly raises the larger question of why military-style assault weapons are allowed for public sale in the first place. Presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter all supported the assault-weapons ban that was enacted in 1994. President George W. Bush Bush allowed the ban to elapse 2004. That simple non-act has made it infinitely easier for madmen like Omar Mateen to carry out their homicidal, hate-filled missions. This ease of access is clearly known and used by radical Islamist terror groups who, according to The New York Times, “openly advertise America’s lax gun laws to encourage those who want to carry out attacks here.” Facilitating atrocities against our own people: thatap the mad logic of the NRA-inspired ideology of guns for all, a “logic” no other advanced nation in the world follows. Future historians will surely puzzle over the question of why America helps to arm its most ruthless enemies with killing machines.
Quentin Martin, Greenwood Village
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