Opinion:"Machine Guns Rarely Used For Crime"(Not demonized so-called "assault-weapons")

The death of 8-year-old Christopher Bizilj with a legally owned machine gun was a tragic accident, but also a very rare one [editorial, May 3, "Gun Law Not A Bold Step"]. Legally owned automatic firearms, machine guns, are rare, highly regulated and very expensive. Very few Americans own them, and use of them to commit crimes is practically nil.

Their safety record in legal civilian hands is far better than numerous other products and activities enjoyed by Americans, including swimming pools, soccer games and bicycles. I'm looking forward to a Courant editorial calling for their banishment.

Also, none of the mass killers mentioned in the editorial used a machine gun. Furthermore, one cannot "pack" a machine gun, as The Courant sarcastically says, implying you can walk around with one. Doing so would be a felony.

Connecticut has an assault weapons ban, and just like the expired federal ban, it has had no effect on gun crime.

As to why adults need them, I ask, who is to decide what we need, The Courant? I'd rather use the Bill of Rights.
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Robert Simeone, Farmington
http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/letters/hc-digbrflets0505.art3may05,0,4618849.story
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A nationally obscure case, from a state with an "assault weapons" ban nearly as oppressive as California's equally unconstitutional miscarriage of justice, the intentional confusion between full & semi technology, unquestioningly accepted by duped & intimidated adults, who should be able to reason logically yet apparently refuse to do so, again results in unquestionable injustice being meted out to a person on a technicality, rather than properly used against the scores of cases of obvious violent criminal intent crimes against persons...The letter of the law abused vs. the spirit of the law, this is an unpardonable sin...