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Letter: Guns are not something to be thankful for

(Allen G. Breed | The Associated Press) In this Oct. 4, 2017, file photo, shooting instructor Frankie McRae demonstrates the grip on an AR-15 rifle fitted with a "bump stock" at his 37 PSR Gun Club in Bunnlevel, N.C. The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence filed the lawsuit on Friday, Oct. 6, 2017, against the makers and sellers of "bump stocks," which use the recoil of a semiautomatic rifle to let the finger "bump" the trigger, allowing the weapon to fire continuously. The devices were used by Stephen Paddock when he opened fire on a country music festival in Las Vegas, killing dozens of people. Attorneys for a California woman wounded in the Oct. 1 mass shooting that killed 58 and left hundreds injured on the Las Vegas Strip have dropped a gun accessories maker from her negligence and damages lawsuit.

It was with some trepidation that I received the Thanksgiving issue of the Salt Lake Tribune. It is predictably the heaviest and largest issue of the paper every year replete with advertisements, which I predictably immediately recycle.

This year, however, as I was perusing the Sports section, I discovered a full-page ad for Impact Guns (on B3). There were 60 weapons advertised along with their prices and on the lower right corner of the page was a chance to win a SIG365. According to Wikipedia: "The Sig Sauer, Inc. P365 is a compact polymer frame handgun. The P365 replaces the P290RS (now discontinued). The P365 is a double-stack magazine 9 x 19mm Parabellum handgun rated for +P pressure,” a description only comprehensible to gun owners.

As I looked at the full-page ad, I considered the availability of the handguns (approximately half the offerings) and the potential for their use in mass shootings, which occurred all too often in the past year.

It is hardly something to be thankful for.

Louis Borgenicht, Salt Lake City

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