The logic of people like Jim Kress ("Bearing arms a natural right," March 14) is baffling.
In supporting a "natural right" to bear arms, he makes reference to Josef Stalin and Pol Pot, asking whether it was treasonous for the people of Russia and Cambodia, respectively, to have rebelled against them. What I can't understand is how he can make any comparison with dictators like that and the situation in present-day America.
Pol Pot's actions were responsible for the annihilation of more than 20 percent of Cambodia's citizens. Stalin imprisoned several million Russians in labor camps and executed hundreds of thousands. So far, President Obama has done things like try to improve our health care system so the 48 million in this country without health care can go to a doctor on a regular basis. He's also tried to get the wealthy to pay more taxes because, in spite of what you hear on Fox news or conservative talk radio, the system is rigged to favor the wealthy. Another thing he's trying to do is make it harder for mentally unstable people to get automatic weapons and shoot up schools and other public places.
What scares me is not that this country is being overtaken by the dreaded "socialists." The scary thing is that people like Mr. Kress are being fed a steady diet of fear-mongering and misinformation and, oh yeah, they're armed.
Andrew Bottum
Albany