The AR-15 assault rifle is the legal weapon of choice for the all too frequent mass murders in our country.

To kill geese or ducks, shotguns are only permitted to have three shells in the chamber and magazine combined.

To shoot deer or elk, hunting rifles are only permitted to have up to six rounds in the magazine and chamber.

To kill humans, an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle holds a clip with 15 bullets and pockets and duffel bags hold multiple clips of 15 bullets each.

Let us use our collective common sense to address this problem of making it too easy to slaughter human beings.

One partial solution, successfully used in Australia to reduce mass shootings to zero in the last 20 years, would be a mandatory public buy-back of AR-15s and similar automatic and semi-automatic assault weapons for a limited period of time and to ban and make illegal the possession of same.

The least we should demand is that every individual who has an assault weapon or enhancements that turn other weapons into these, have their name, contact information and weapon ownership published in their community, state and on publicly-accessible lists for all to see ... and beware.

That might give innocent folks a better chance at survival.

Tim LaFrance

Durango