To the editors.
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One, a quote from Rob Buono, an Eisendrath legislative aide, reads, “Some of these guns, you pull the trigger and they spray 30 bullets within seconds. We’re not talking about an old-fashioned handgun, which discharges one bullet at a time” (emphasis added). Well, it didn’t take much research on my part to put the lie to Buono’s statement. Only five paragraphs later the proposed ordinance is described. Of the 16 types of firearms explicitly mentioned as being “targets” of the ordinance, 16 (all of them) are precisely “old-fashioned” firearms, which do indeed fire one bullet at a time. All 16 weapons function just the same as a cop’s revolver. Pull the trigger once and one bullet comes out.
While recalling a trip to a police storage room, Andrew contends, “There was this nine-millimeter pistol with a 100-round capacity. That means you pull the trigger and it fires like a brick of firecrackers, shooting 100 bullets” (emphasis added). An absolute lie. A “100-round capacity” means one must pull the trigger exactly 100 times to fire 100 bullets. This is not a subtle distinction and I feel it is an attempt to intentionally mislead an uninformed public on an issue of fundamental freedom. Freedom which is rooted in the principle that mature adult humans have the intellectual capacity to act responsibly.
This grossly irresponsible behavior on the part of the state was the main factor in Purdy’s ability to legally purchase the weapons he used. If the state had followed through, gone to court and won a conviction on just one of Purdy’s felonies he would have been unable to buy his AK-47 lookalike (although the death toll might have been much higher had he eschewed firearms and driven through the school yard).
