Letter: Gun advocates miss the point

I find it interesting how frequently gun control advocates are taken to task on semantic issues related to gun terminology by gun enthusiasts ("Reader misinformed on guns," "Tell It to the E-R," Friday).

Make the gun control advocate look uninformed by raking them over the coals for misusing the phrase "fully automatic weapon" instead of "semi-automatic weapon" and quibbling about what is meant by the term "high-powered" so the gun control advocate's arguments can seemingly be handily refuted.

A red herring is defined as something that draws attention away from the central issue. This appears to be an NRA-approved lobbying tactic — as evidenced by this all-too-frequent type of "Tell It to the E-R" comment.

The central issue is this: A legally available AR-15 semi-automatic weapon can fire between 45 and 60 rounds per minute, depending on the skill level of the operator. At close range, a .22-caliber round is powerful enough that farmers use it to kill 300-pound pigs with a single shot to the head.

Now this is the real central issue in this controversy. The central issue here has absolutely nothing to do with gun terminology.

—?Mark S. Gailey, Chico