Letter: Fight illegal drug trade, not guns

PUBLICATION: The Province
DATE: 2004.09.28
EDITION: Final
SECTION: Editorial
PAGE: A17
BYLINE: Doug Miller
SOURCE: Vancouver Province

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Fight illegal drug trade, not guns

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The fear created by the lifting of the ban on assault weapons in the
U.S. is mostly a case of ignorance and media hype.

While the purchase or transfer of assault weapons was banned in 1994,
the ban did not apply to weapons lawfully owned before the law came into
effect. Also, functionally similar or identical weapons remained legal
to purchase.

About the only significant difference between the U.S. and Canada is we
ban large-capacity magazines. But anyone of moderate ability can modify
legal magazines to increase their capacity or simply carry multiple
low-capacity magazines.

It seems to me we would be far better advised to spend our money and
time addressing the drug trade, around which much of the illegal use of
guns revolves.

Doug Miller,
Nanaimo