pinion Letter to the Editor: Common Sense Gun Control

Dear Editor,

In 1972, due to a perceived occupational necessity, at the time, an application for a pistol-carry permit, was submitted to the State of New York. This application was accompanied by personal letters of recommendation by various law enforcement officers, with whom there were personal affiliations.

Background investigations were made by the FBI, New York State police, county and local police agencies. One year later, the permit license was granted to be recognized throughout the state of New York, but not in the cities of New York and Buffalo.

That common sense vetting procedure has since been eroded by numerous lawsuits, spearheaded by the NRA. The final controlling dam was breached, releasing a further flood of guns in June 2008, when the Supreme Court, in a 5 to 4 ruling, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, for the majority, striking down a law banning handguns in Washington DC.

The second amendment to our Constitution has been so perverted, that what was intended to have a regulated militia, armed with single shot muskets, to defend our newly formed government, has denigrated, so that millions of heavily armed, untrained individuals, some obviously with malfunctioning personalities, are in our midst.

The rate of murders in our country now exceeds the rate in which my comrades in action were killed in combat in the Korean war 60 years ago. The evil genie is now out of its bottle and no one has the nerve to put it back.

Skip Hannon
Bradenton