Ban on Assault Guns Misses the Target

Re “Reload the Assault Gun Ban,” July 13: Calling assault rifles “weapons of mass destruction” is silly. There are several definitions of WMD, but I can’t find a single one that even comes close to including assault rifles.

The U.S. Army defines WMD as “capable of inflicting massive destruction to property and/or population, using nuclear, chemical, biological or radioactive material.” WMD are also referred to as “weapons of indiscriminate destruction.” An assault rifle hardly fits the definition, and it’s not indiscriminate.

It shoots only in the direction it’s pointed, and in the hands of someone trained in how to use it, it’s very discriminate.

Ray Brasser

Santa Paula

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If you must resort to such hyperbole as dubbing common, semiautomatic firearms “weapons of mass destruction,” then the least you could do is run that editorial on a different day from the one that claims Saddam Hussein didn’t have any.

Jeff Bishop

Rancho Santa Margarita

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It is time to sunset the federal assault gun ban because the crime reduction promised by its proponents has not occurred. Therefore, this limit on our civil liberties has lost its only legitimate reason to exist, and it should die.

James L. Dodd

San Diego