I own and shoot three semiautomatic rifles. They are locked in a safe when not in use. None of them has a magazine of more than 10 rounds nor do any meet the specifications of "assault weapon."
I do not hunt, but I greatly enjoy shooting holes in paper targets. Now, here is my point: It takes skill and practice to shoot targets at rapid fire, say shooting 10 targets in five or 10 seconds without working a bolt or lever.
I am sure marksmen and women who use different style rifles with larger magazines feel the same. It is a skill that I enjoy practicing: It takes time to accustom oneself to adjusting to the recoil of the rifle, to reacquiring a target, and then to fire again accurately at the bull's-eye. It's just fun, like trying to reach the green with one golf swing, and just as harmless.
So the next time somebody says the only reason for semiautomatic firearms is "to kill as many people as possible in the least amount of time," please tell them about rapid-fire target shooting. I mean, if what they say were true, wouldn't I and every owner of such a gun be a murderer and wouldn't there be a dozen dead people for every semiautomatic rifle out there?
I look forward to more reasonable debate on this subject.
ROBERT M. LANGE
Guilderland
