Rifles are tools of safety

There aren’t any civilian-owned assault rifles in France, Turkey or China, yet hundreds of defenseless people, many of them schoolchildren, have been killed by terrorists and madmen who often use knives.

Regarding so-called assault rifles, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, “Roughly five million Americans own AR-style semiautomatic rifles. The overwhelming majority of citizens who own and use such rifles do so for lawful purposes, including self-defense, hunting and target shooting.”

A recent Washington Post-ABC poll found “a record-high opposition to a ban on assault weapons.”

The National Rifle Association is absolutely correct by calling for increased security in all of our schools to keep our precious children safe and, like the Swiss, a military-type service rifle (assault rifle) should be kept in every American home as part of the national defense in this age of terrorism.

Curt Stone

Dayton