Dear Editor,

In response to the letter “Are You a Felon?” (1/23/2020), I must respectfully ask “Are you nuts?” None of the rifle models you mentioned are automatic weapons; they are all SEMI-automatic rifles, and thus legal to own. And despite what the Sky-Is-Falling crowd would have us believe, they’re likely to stay that way.

As for the frustrations you’ve faced in dealing with the local Sportsmen’s Club, that’s hardly the same as having your rights violated by a government gun-grab.

Fearmongers have been warning us for decades about how the evil government (read “the Democrats”) are fixin’ any day now to take all our shootin’ irons away….and yet somehow it never actually happens. But such fearmongering serves, whether incidentally or by design, to keep gun sales at a healthy level, and that’s the gun lobby’s primary aim, right? Pardon me if I no longer buy those tired old “boy who cried wolf” warnings anymore. (We MAY someday have to surrender our bazookas though. Won’t that be a bummer.)

Big special-interest dollars? Yeah, on both sides, my friend.

And finally, to the author’s comment that “you will find some scary stuff” on the internet, I can only reply that you will also find lots of misinformation and flat-out baloney there. In fact, it appears you already have.

Stan Estabrook

Forks