John Kerry’s and the Sun Journal’s position on the so-called assault weapons ban is predictable and dead wrong.

The 19 “banned” guns are indistinguishable from the 19 guns that replaced them. Today, more semi-automatic guns are in private hands than were 10 years ago and crimes committed with this type of gun have gone down by 65 percent. The law did not remove a single gun from a criminal’s hand nor make it harder for a terrorist to acquire them.

The Second Amendment is as absolute as the First and the left should learn to respect that.

But I will vote for John Kerry because John Kerry is better able to fight the war on terror, grow the economy, restore the world’s confidence in America and help the working people of this country.

John Kerry would not abandon the war on terror to satisfy some personal grudge as George Bush did. John Kerry would not give his rich friends our tax dollars while sending too few soldiers with too little body armor or armored vehicles to invade, conquer and occupy a country that did not threaten us as George Bush did. John Kerry will respect our allies and work with them to eliminate threats to peace, not ridicule them as George Bush did. And John Kerry will protect our jobs, not export them as George Bush did.

Jonathan Albrecht, Dixfield