Responsible gun owners must step forward

This letter is in response to Ken Thacker’s opinion on, “Mass shooters had a lot of fire power.”

I’ll start by saying that I grew up in a gun culture while living in North Idaho for 58 years. My uncle had one of the largest collection of Winchester rifles in Idaho and I have shot semi-auto shotguns all my life. I cherish the American tradition of hunting and the right to bear arms. I still spend many days hunting waterfowl with a firearm in my hands.

With that said I totally agree with Ken’s article. It’s funny that the state won’t allow me more that three shells in my shotgun to shoot geese because they feel you will kill too many. But the state will allow clips in semi-automatic style assault weapons that are capable and have killed scores of people. The Las Vegas shooter fired more than 1,000 rounds. Really do we need to have the legal capability to fire that many rounds to defend ourselves?

We need stricter, responsible gun ownership in this county. You can look at any statistic you want and gun violence in this country is out of control. Other countries are willing to do something about it; why can’t this country? I am not afraid of the government taking my guns. I am afraid of mass shooting at malls, at-large public events such as concerts, and in our public schools. (Eleven school shootings have taken place in this country since Jan. 1)

The NRA isn’t making our country safer; opposing “bump stock” bans; large capacity magazines and clips bans, and arming our teachers isn’t the answer to our gun problem. The NRA believes that everyone should be packing a gun; I personally do not want to live in a war zone and it makes me very uncomfortable to be standing in the grocery line where someone has a gun on their hip. I totally support the items mentioned in Ken’s article. I would hope there are many more responsible hunters and gun owners who will be willing to communicate these views with our reluctant politicians to actually implement gun control policies. I feel that this would be a step forward in making this country safer.

JOHN NITCY

Sandpoint