I would like to commend Will Durst for his column in the June 23 Daily Leader, I thought I had a command of the English language but he is leagues ahead of me.

There is no way I could place as many distortions, half-truths, misconceptions, fabrications, insults and falsehoods in so few words.

Even the title “A Bit of Common Sense on Guns” is misleading. Refuting all of these would require a tome of the size and scope of Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” Therefore I will address his allusion that firearms can be purchased without showing any type of identification. Federal law requires anyone purchasing a firearm from a licensed dealer to provide a driver’s license or other government issued ID showing the purchasers is a resident of the state, provide their Social Security number and answer a series of questions under the penalty of perjury.

This information is submitted to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System and if the prospective purchaser is in the system, the purchase is blocked. In addition, many states and cities have their own requirements.

Toward the end of his diatribe he mentions a “HK MG4 capable of shooting 800 .45 caliber bullets in under a minute with a range of half a mile” and follows with “Hunting weapons?” “Seriously?” As if it is being sold in the U.S. A quick search on the Internet revealed the HK MG4 is a light machine gun developed for use by the German Army. Apparently Mr. Durst is not aware that the possession of automatic firearms was prohibited by the National Firearms Act of 1934.

The only conclusion I can reach is that Mr. Durst is woefully ignorant of existing Federal and State firearms laws and firearms in general or is deliberately misleading uninformed people.

 

 

George Higdon

Wesson