LAKEWOOD, Ohio — I wonder what horror might have occurred on June 8, 2022, if Nicholas Roske had been lugging an M79 grenade launcher with him instead of carrying his Glock 17 semi-automatic pistol, a knife and some burglary tools.
I wonder how much blood might have been spilled on June 14, 2017, if James Hodgkinson had been armed with a .50-caliber machine gun instead of his SKS semi-automatic rifle and 9 mm handgun.
According to legal authorities, Roske is the 26-year-old California man who traveled across country and approached the Chevy Chase, Maryland, home of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh at about an hour after midnight. When he saw two deputy marshals outside the house, authorities said, Roske retreated about a block and a half away and called his sister, who convinced him to call 911. He has pleaded “not guilty” after being indicted in an attempt to assassinate a justice of the United States.
Hodgkinson, 66, of Illinois, died of injuries following a 10-minute shootout with police officers at a field in Alexandria, Virginia, where the GOP team was practicing for the Congressional Baseball Game for Charity. Before being fatally wounded himself, the attacker’s bullets hit five people. Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise and lobbyist Matt Mika were seriously injured. Two U.S. Capitol police officers and a congressional aide suffered lesser injuries.
Having been introduced to a variety of military weapons many years ago, I’m aware that a well-trained person with an M79 could have launched a grenade into Kavanaugh’s home from more than three football fields away. He wouldn’t encounter deputy marshals before blowing the place to smithereens. Likewise, I believe that, if the wounds suffered by Scalise and Mika had been inflicted by a .50-caliber machine gun, they would have been deadly, and there would have been more victims.
Fortunately, it’s extremely difficult to legally obtain a military weapon like an M79 grenade launcher. A would-be purchaser would have to pass an in-depth background check by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, wait six months to a year and pay a stiff fee. It would require another application to the ATF and another long wait to obtain live rounds, which would not include grenades, which, for all intents and purposes, are illegal.
The 1986 Firearms Owners’ Protection Act has prohibited the production of new .50-caliber machine guns for 36 years. Although the ATF estimates that about 630,000 of those military weapons still exist in the United States., it would require an extensive FBI background check and tens of thousands of dollars in fees to acquire one.
I don’t know how Republican legislators, whose baseball-playing members were brutally attacked by a left-wing domestic terrorist five years ago, might vote on legislation to ease up background checks on the purchase of .50-caliber machine guns. I don’t know how the U.S. Supreme Court’s pro-gun, conservative majority, including Kavanaugh, might interpret the Second Amendment’s application to grenade launchers.
But I wonder about such matters because of my introduction to such deadly weapons during military training in 1968-69. I wonder about such matters, because the gun lobby’s political bootlickers willingly arm domestic terrorists with AR-15-style semi-automatic weapons, which basically are counterparts to the M16 that I carried in Vietnam.
Dave Lange, a Navy veteran of Vietnam, is a member of the Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame.
In those days, our government armed young men with military weapons to engage America’s well-armed enemies in war. In more recent days, our government has enabled the gutless slaughter of 19 little schoolchildren in Uvalde, Texas, 20 first-graders in Newtown, Connecticut, .and 14 high-school teenagers in Parkland, Florida with AR-15-style military weapons, and the list goes on.
AR-15-style weapons turn fearful men into terrorists with contrived bravado who murder Black shoppers in Buffalo, religious worshippers in a Pittsburgh synagogue, concertgoers in Las Vegas, and the list goes on.
I can’t help but wonder what it would take to open the eyes of politicians to the death count inflated by their militaristic weaponization of American civilians.
Dave Lange, a Vietnam veteran, is a retired newspaper editor, member of the Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame and author of the memoir, “Virginity Lost in Vietnam.”
Have something to say about this topic?
* Send a letter to the editor, which will be considered for print publication.
* Email general questions about our editorial board or comments or corrections on this opinion column to Elizabeth Sullivan, director of opinion, at esullivan@cleveland.com.
The post How can it be that weapons like the M16 that I carried in Vietnam are so easy to buy? Dave Lange first appeared on Eatory.my.id.
