Do many people actually read the Second Amendment? It states that a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.

A well regulated militia is the National Guard. The United States also has a standing military force. Any other armed, militant group today would be an anarchic organization opposing the United States. When the amendment was drafted, real concern existed that Britain or some other nation had desires to take over our new nation. While those concerns no longer exist, the article still states we can own firearms.

The National Rifle Association uses the Second Amendment to justify its arming of the country far beyond the flintlock rifle. While member gun owners think their dues are the real support of the NRA, it is the manufacturers of weapons who are the true supporters and who want to sell millions or billions of dollars of arms.

We are facing, in Topeka and elsewhere, an epidemic almost of shootings and murders largely due to firearms. In an attempt to reduce these murders and shootings, the mayor and police chief of Kansas City, Mo., recommend universal mandatory background checks on the sale of all firearms and mandatory reporting of stolen or lost guns.

Multiple studies have shown that 85 to 90 percent of Americans support universal background checks, including 74 percent of National Rifle Association members. Our legislators, state and national, ignore this fact because the NRA gives them large campaign contributions.

No situation exists for the need for multiple shot clips or automatic weaponry. Relatives tell me these guns are fun to shoot. They may be, but the primary objective of the manufacturers is not amusement, but making a gun to kill.

BARTLETT W. RAMSEY, Topeka

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Letter: NRA opposes reasonable responses