Our Durango Herald just delivered a sportsman’s flier bizarrely titled: “Unforgettable Christmas.” Featured: A NATO 5.56 mm assault rifle with a 32+1 round capacity.
I grew up hunting and have a rifle collection. No accomplished sportsman will shoot 33 deer, elk or bears at a time.
The sole purpose of this gun is either quickly killing as many people as possible or putting salve on a paranoid fear of defending your home, family or country from some attack by Bad Guys (um, who are they?).
Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus, who preached Love Your Neighbor and Peace on Earth. Yet, polls show that many of our Christians fervently support the American political party that refuses to even discuss banning assault rifles that are constantly used in mass shootings of innocent people – women, children, peace officers and unarmed people, all over Colorado and America.
Many in this country are becoming sick, violent and immoral by actively defending the huge corporate profits of assault rifle makers. The gun corporations lavishly finance the campaigns of the corrupt politicians who refuse to defend our families’ lives.
We only get politicians’ sops of repeated “thoughts and prayers” for the hundreds of victims’ families who get an Unforgettable Christmas.
I call on city, county and state political leaders to man up and deal with this nightmare: Ban advertising and sale of the vicious assault rifles now.
Albert DurandDurango
