We need to use the facts in gun debate

If I sent a letter to the editor calling for a law to outlaw bank robberies, I am certain you would not publish it because we already have a law against bank robberies. So why did you publish a letter from Laurel Anderson March 4 calling for a law to ban automatic weapons when we already have one? Since 1968, it has been illegal to own, possess, buy, sell or trade an automatic weapon without a federal license which takes a year or more to obtain and is issued only after an extensive investigation of the person applying.

Ms. Anderson claims "There are too many shootings today with automatic weapons." Wrong. There have been no shootings with automatic weapons. She also claims that "people should be checked before they buy any guns." Again she gets it wrong because people are checked against a federal register.

The recent mass shooters were all checked and passed. Finally, she claims that the Second Amendment "is to protect you and yours." Wrong again. The Second Amendment is about the people being able to protect themselves against a tyrannical federal militia - like the one the founders of this country had just finished fighting against and defeating.

There are lots of things we can do to make ourselves safer like fixing the federal register, enforcing laws against committing a crime with a gun, getting all states to report people with mental health problems so they can be added to the federal registry, and firing the people at the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives who decided that bump stocks needed no restrictions. But we won't make any progress if we allow the waters to be muddied by people who don't know what they are talking about.

Rich Schwanbeck

Elk Grove Village