Don't let fear cloud reason

In her Feb. 13 column, “Guns Blazin’,” Indira Dammu vehemently argues for stricter gun control laws, but she avoids facts and common sense. She stated that Indiana does not restrict “the sale of assault weapons or military-style semiautomatic firearms” and that Congress allowed the Federal Assault Weapons Act to expire, but she failed to account for the fact that the assault weapons ban had no noticeable effect on violent crime (hence Congress’ unwillingness to extend the law).\nDammu also argues that the U.S. Constitution does not protect the right of an individual to keep and bear arms; that it is “a collective right, not an individual right.” To any average person who reads the Second Amendment today, this would probably seem correct. Yet this isn’t the case. Dammu fails to account for the fact that languages (and the meanings of words) change with time. Furthermore, she avoids the countless testimonies of our Founding Fathers that contradict her argument. For example, Samuel Adams once said, “the Constitution shall never be construed ... to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”\nDammu further misconstrues reality by implying that the “radical” (National Rifle Association) supports gun-rights for terrorists because it opposed a bill that would ban the sale of firearms to suspected terrorists. Anyone who seeks the truth and researches the issue will find that because “suspect” is not legally defined, the government can declare anyone a “suspect,” regardless of why. Thus, the bill would effectively empower the government to ban the sale of guns to anyone for no reason whatsoever.\nIf the NRA is as “radical” as Dammu claims, why did it recently support H.R. 2640, which aims to significantly improve our background check system?\nIt is understandable that people who aren’t accustomed to guns fear them, but their fear shouldn’t disrupt their ability to reason. To those who support gun control, I humbly ask that you research the issue with an open and unbiased mind. It has been shown numerous times that gun control does not reduce crime, but it needlessly restricts the rights of law-abiding citizens.