Banning weapons will not reduce crime

Regarding the Aug. 22 article, “Cedar Rapids residents call for stricter gun laws”:

The article under “public safety” should have been listed under “politics.” Since the “sponsoring” organization was the local chapter of Organizing for Action, which is President Obama's national re-election committee renamed as a tax-exempt organization that is continuing to promote his agenda.

Banning assault weapons (semi-automatic rifles that look scary and are black in color), per the 2011 FBI Uniform Crime Report of all crimes that involved rifles of all types: they were used in just 2.5 percent of the crimes.

A survey conducted by Policeone.com of more than 15,000 police professionals shows the opposite of what Cedar Rapids Police Chief Wayne Jerman is supporting. Seventy percent said that a ban on “assault weapons” would not reduce violent crime, 96 percent said that a ban on standard capacity magazines would not reduce crime, and 81 percent said that gun buy backs do not reduce gun violence.

The murders cited were terrible events. But blaming the firearms used is like saying lynchings are the fault of the rope used. Murder is a crime, it doesn't manner how it was committed or what was used.

History shows many of the original gun control laws were enacted after the Civil War by Democrats to control blacks and to prevent them from owning firearms to protect themselves and their families. It's ironic that on the eve of Dr. Martin Luther King's I Have Dream speech anniversary, there are those who want to limit our civil rights in the name of supposedly preventing crime.

John Allen

Marion