Assault Weapons and My Stance

Sorry folks.
I preface these comments with an appreciation for all of you that come here to read my work.
I mostly write about sports, but as you know I occasionally stray from sports to talk about me, my background and as the title says "other important items".
I don't mean to hurt anyone's feelings, I always respect others opinions and I sure hope that I don't lose any of you at a time when our readership is expanding at its highest rate ever.
However, I have something to say about assault weapons.
I've had enough and it's time to say what I believe, despite the hit that I may take in readership.
These weapons are a plague on our nation and they need to go-as in tomorrow.

First, let me add this though. I'm not anti-gun.
I come from a family that hunted, my grandfather hunted, my dad still does and even though I never have had any interest in guns or hunting, I've never been anti-gun.
In some areas of the country, hunting is not just a sport or a pastime, it is part of life and even part of survival, so I'm not a steaming liberal that thinks the answer to all ills of our nation is to eliminate guns.
I wouldn't take one shotgun or rifle out of a home and I wouldn't ban ownership of new buyers either, pending that persons that want to own a gun passing all the procedures that are in place (and maybe even more) for ownership.
Handguns are a different problem, but for the purposes of this, I am going to exclude that problem from this topic.
I also am not a touchy feel good person that hates violence in film, television, and sports.
As you all know, I'm a huge boxing fan, grew up on pro wrestling and I love old western television, a good action film and as Cherie and Rachel will tell you, I'm about the biggest Terminator fan you'll find of the first three films.
No elitist Starbucks sipper am I.
So before I begin-One more time- I am not anti-gun

Now that I have hopefully established that I'm not anti-gun, I'll say this- When it comes to assault weapons in the Automatic or some in the Semi-Automatic class, there is nothing anyone can tell me that will convince me that these guns are of any value to our country at all.
Zero.

That's right-zero.
I'm not a gun expert. I haven't shot a gun in over 30 years.
However, there is zero reason for these weapons to be in the hands of the average American that wants one.
Hunting? Try going out and hunting a deer with some of these weapons.
There would very little worth salvaging to eat using these for hunting!
Target Shooting? There are plenty of other guns to use than assault weapons and better yet, try the bow and arrow for the throwback archer!
I'm waiting for the legitimate reasons one can have for these types of weapons to be owned.

Frankly, there isn't one and I'm tired of people with mental illnesses, people mad at their spouse or their boss being able to get access to these machines and mow down innocent victims.
In a country that claims to be civilized, wouldn't the prudent method be to eliminate ownership of weapons that essentially have just one purpose-killing other people?
To me, that only makes sense.

The argument of  "guns don't kill people, people kill people" is a tired and unhumorous one.
One can use that argument with anything created-items in the wrong hands etc.
That might be true, but for a country that continues to cut back on money spent on mental health help for the people that are most likely to develop the type of issues that cause tragedies and not have a reasonable ban on these weapons lacks a feel for this issue that it truly demands.

I also know that Automatic Weapons are already banned, but that ban didn't do anyone any good last night in Las Vegas.
The coward that doesn't deserve for his name to be typed got those weapons from someone somewhere and those people need to be tracked down and thrown in jail.
If these weapons are indeed banned then they aren't being banned well- let's put some teeth into the law or better yet put even more law enforcement officers on this beat and get rid of these guns!

I'm not going to belabor my position on this and I'm not going to be writing about all the time, but I'm going to be calling and writing people in the position of power and stating my position and beginning to be involved in how to change things and stop the next gutless weasel that had a rough go of it in life.
For me,it's the right thing to do.

The easy thing to say after a tragedy like this is that "This isn't the time for this conversation".
The sad thing to say is the right time was when I could have been involved to stop it.