Guns!

This will be an open letter to the Congress, President of the United States and whoever else is responsible for protecting Americans from gun violence.
#1  Your thoughts and prayers and condolences mean absolutely nothing to the families whose lives are being ripped apart, whose family members are being slaughtered in what is now almost a daily occurrence of gun violence.
We rant and rave about terrorism overseas, spend billions protecting our shores from terrorists, yet do NOTHING about domestic terrorism.
Yesterday, 14 CHILDREN and 3 teachers died from bullets from the barrel of an AR-15 rifle in the hands of a 19 year old boy. Many more are injured and traumatized for life. Families like the Sandy Hook families, The Las Vegas families, the Columbine families and all the rest of the families are all victims of your inability to care about anything other than your own careers.
You say guns don't kill, people do. Semantics aside, guns in the hands of people KILL! Say it any way you want to, it still ends up that guns in the hands of people KILL! You pass Stand Your Ground laws, basically justifying the ability to commit legal murder. You listen to ALEC instead of the people who put you in office to pass common-sense legislation to protect them. Unfortunately, the people don't have the resources and the money you do, so on and on it goes.
The NRA tells you that people have the right to own any weapon they want because of the 2nd Amendment. I say BULLSHIT! They are called Assault Weapons for a reason, they are designed for maximum killing in the shortest period of time.
#2 The NRA owns you and the people know it. How you sleep at night, I don't know. But I do know that unless you, and you alone, do something about banning assault weapons again, the killings will not cease. More children will die, probably this week. More families will bury their dead and grieve for the remainder of their lives because of that loss. Is this what you call responsibility?
You have a known terrorist among you and you do nothing except take his money for the furtherance of your careers. I refer, of course, to Wayne LaPierre and the NRA. They claim to be the protector of peoples rights to own weapons. They are a TERRORIST organization and you are in their pockets.
As far as gun ownership is concerned, I am a gun owner. I have guns for hunting and protection, but they hardly ever see the light of day, because I don't live in daily fear and I don't need to project my MANLINESS in the form of how big my weapon is. Others do! Complete and uniform background checks harm no one except those that should not own weapons. Institute them NOW! Close the gun show loopholes. AND BAN ASSAULT WEAPONS NOW! Buy back every one of them and destroy them or give them to our military where they belong.
Dennis M O'Connor for Congress Maine 2nd District
dennismoconnor.com