Letter: Semiautomatics should not be sold

The Second Amendment was enacted in 1779. As most readers know, it states, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

Arms in the era of 1779 were cap and ball muskets and hand guns. To reload after one shot required in excess of one minute by using a ram rod. The Framers of the Second amendment had no concept that the development of the rim fire cartridge and magazine in 1857 would allow semiautomatic rifles and hand guns to fire bullets at the rate of one per second.

The Firearms Control Regulation Act of 1975 was passed by the District of Columbia banning handguns, automatic and semiautomatic rifles, sawed-off shotguns, and short-barreled rifles. In 2008 in Heller vs. the United States, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1975 Firearms Act by a 5-4 vote. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the majority opinion but stated that the right to bear arms is subject to regulation, i.e. commercial sales, and sale of dangerous and unusual weapons.

In my opinion, a semiautomatic rifle that was designed to kill people, that can fire a bullet a second from a high-capacity magazine, is certainly a dangerous and unusual weapon. They should not be sold to the general population.

This story was originally published June 21, 2016 at 8:05 PM with the headline "Letter: Semiautomatics should not be sold."