As if any of the current bills being considered at the State House or by Congress would lead to the confiscation of all weapons from law-abiding citizens. On March 24, in his “Outdoors in Maine” column, Paul Reynolds brings up the familiar “slippery slope” argument that an assault weapon ban would be the first step in disarming gun owners.

While the 1994-2004 assault weapons ban (which had numerous loopholes) did not cause a major reduction in shootings, it may have prevented a few and certainly did no harm.

As if the “leftist traitors to the Second Amendment” described in Robert Acheson’s letter (April 7) should also ban baseball bats and cars, because “both can kill people.” Let’s just provide bats and cars instead of M16s to the Marines when they hit the beach or patrol Fallujah.

I don’t think that “gun snatchers” have any hope, much less any plan, for overturning the Second Amendment. The second item in the Bill of Rights is constitutional bedrock, but, as Justice Scalia has pointed out, the amendment is not unconditional.

Acheson ends his letter saying that the gun control agenda will “emasculate the public.” That comment underscores the notion that guns convey masculinity.

Is one’s manhood questionable if he does not own a gun?

What if the majority of the populace could convince their legislators, over the paranoid rants of the gun lobby, to strengthen background checks, limit the size of ammunition magazines, and maybe even exclude some of the weapons of war from the mass market? I think a lot of people would feel a bit safer.

Edward Walworth, Lewiston