Letter to the Editor:Amendment is not a shield

I'm going to ask our state Sen. Jack Scott to introduce a bill requiring all guns to have different-colored triggers — fuchsia, chartreuse, lavender, etc. These could make for quite trendy guns and really increase gun sales.

Oh, but I can already hear the National Rifle Assn. and its many gun owner sycophants screaming: Colored triggers pose a risk to law-abiding people, or it's a veiled attempt to chip away at people's right to bear arms, or it will be an incremental step toward the ultimate step of removing our 2nd Amendment right altogether.

Do these objections sound stupid? Of course they do. But these are the same types of complaints that are used in opposition to Assembly Bill 1471, which would require a cartridge micro-stamping mechanism on semi-automatic pistols to assist in solving and prosecuting gun-related crimes ("Officials weigh in on gun bill," Political Landscape, May 31).

It just boggles my mind that the NRA and its supporters foam at the mouth over even the most minuscule efforts to reduce and help prosecute gun-related carnage. What is just as bad, if not worse, are the many, many members of our governing bodies who march in lock step to their rabid demands.

It's way, way past the time when serious action should be taken against the proliferation of guns and their concomitant crimes and carnage. I own several guns and have enjoyed their legal use (not for hunting — grist for another letter sometime) over the years but am absolutely amazed, if not horrified, by the irrationally fervent gun worship shown by so many owners.

The 2nd Amendment is important, but it is crazy to unrelentingly worship it as if it is the manifestation of the true word of some pagan god. All you gun owners, get real and realize that the 2nd Amendment provision for "a well-regulated militia" is not going to disappear, but it should not be used as a shield against every proposed provision to reduce gun-related crime and carnage.

ROBERT MORRISON

Glendale