The statement by letter writer Jim Francis to "put anyone who owns an automatic weapon on a domestic terrorism watch list" is without merit.

Automatic weapons have been outlawed since the 1920s by the federal government. To even own an automatic weapon requires a permit from the ATF and I doubt they issue very many.

To put a gun owner on a "terrorism watch list" smacks of the Third Reich. "First they came for the Jews, then the homosexuals, then for the non-whites, then for me, as there was no one left."

Even during the previous assault weapon ban, there were mass shootings. And what about Chicago? There have been more than 400 murders this year in the city and it has the strictest gun laws in the nation.

There are evil people in this world; that is something we have to live with. I learned that in 30 years of military police experience and graduate studies at Michigan State University and the Eastern Kentucky School of Law Enforcement. Ted Bundy managed to kill without guns, a disgruntled farmer blew up an elementary school in Bath, Mich., in the 1920s and killed more than 30 children and in Norway, a gentle and quiet country, a single deranged gunman killed more than 70 people as he met zero resistance until the police arrived on the island.

The NRA is right, the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

Phil Henning

Smithton