Scott Watkins, Morgantown
A bill has been introduced in Congress, HR 5087, known as the Assault Weapons Ban 2018. This bill has been cosponsored by 174 Democrats.
This bill states that it will be unlawful for the importation, manufacture, possession, sale or transfer of assault weapons and for other purposes. This bill refers to an assault weapon as any semi-automatic firearm, which includes pistols, rifles and shotguns.
It is apparent the progressive socialists are testing the waters with this bill and if it were to pass, they would then proceed with a follow up bill to go after all remaining firearms in America. Somehow they believe that if the law-abiding citizens cannot purchase these firearms, crimes involving them will go away.
Do they truly believe the criminals and gangs in cities such as Chicago, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., which have the strictest gun laws in this country, are buying their weapons legally?
Australia thought if they were to confiscate all firearms, which they did, their crime rate would plummet. In actuality, once their citizens were disarmed, the crime rate increased dramatically due to the fact that their citizens could no longer defend themselves.
To those of us who were actually taught world history in school, we should remember this is how Nazi Germany started out. First the people were convinced to register all of their guns and then once the government knew where they were, the government confiscated them, leaving German citizens defenseless. The rest, as they say, is history. We cannot allow our government to repeat this.
I urge anyone with internet access to look up and read HR 5087 and contact your representatives. We do not need this bill but we do need our government and law enforcement to enforce the laws we have in place.
