Letter: Don’t let government take guns

According to the FBI, there were about 30,000 gun-related deaths last year. Most were suicides — about 65 percent — which arguably would have probably taken place anyway. Law enforcement in the line of duty accounted for 15 percent. Criminal gangs, drugs, or the mentally ill accounted for 17 percent. Three percent were accidental discharge deaths.

A large percentage of the homicides took place in four cities, Chicago (480), Baltimore (344), Detroit (333), and Washington, D.C. (119). The state with the highest rate of gun homicides was California at 1,169. All have some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation. All are run by Democrats.

All death is sad and especially so when it is in the commission of crime. Thinking that criminals or terrorists will obey new gun laws is ludicrous. It won’t happen.

If gun control laws don’t prevent criminals from getting guns, why are some in government interested in taking guns away from millions of law-abiding citizens who own them? Easy answer: For the very reason the Founders wrote the Second Amendment in the first place — to protect the people from a potential tyrannical government, like the one that they had just suffered eight years of war to throw off.

History is full of examples where a disarmed citizenry has been taken over by a dictatorship. Hitler and his National Socialist Party comes quickly to mind. This is not a wacko conspiracy theory; it has happened many times and could happen here, if we let it.

This story was originally published June 28, 2016 at 4:46 PM with the headline "Letter: Don’t let government take guns."