To the editor:
The prime purpose of the NRA is to promote the sale of guns. For decades, greater profits have motivated the NRA to claim, in its “slippery slope” argument, that any gun control is the first step toward banning all guns!
“They are coming to take your guns away!” the NRA says. So membership dues and donations flow in, and more guns are sold. NRA “experts” are even teaching self-defense and safety techniques to the public, and reports indicate that instructors often say things like, “In these dangerous times, you really need a gun for protection.” Once again, fear is used to sell more guns.
This is nonsense. To reduce the rates of highway accidents, for example, our regulations are designed to ensure that safe drivers are driving safe vehicles. Traffic laws, penalties, licenses, eye tests, and regular checks for brakes, tires, steering, etc., are seen as reasonable. Though unsafe vehicles might be banned from our highways, no one has ever tried to ban the private ownership of cars, trucks, and motorcycles.
Likewise, there has never been any attempt to ban all guns. So, the NRA’s claim that somebody wants to ban all guns is a pure case of fear-mongering for the purpose of profit.
Kernan Claflin
Hancock