Gunnison Valley News | 1929-03-07 | Page 4 | Anti-Pistol Laws and National Defense

ANTI-PISTOL LAWS AND 1 NATIONAL DEFENSE. A discussion recently took place in the Massachusetts legislature regarding regard-ing proposed laws regulating the man-j ufacture, sale arid delivery of revolvers-and pistols. During this, according accord-ing the to Boston Transcript, the fol-' fol-' lowing telegram was received from the war department, signed by Assistant As-sistant Secretary Robbins: "Wait- department de-partment considers continuance in existence of our arms and ammunitions ammuni-tions manufacturers as vital to national na-tional defense and is opposed to any , bill ' prohibiting the manufacture of small arms or their properly controlled control-led sale to law'abiding citizens which might result, in forcing such manufac- ti'rers- out of existence." This briefly and clearly states the case from the important, starrlnmnt . of national safety. American manufacturers manu-facturers of guns and munitions cannot can-not remain in business by waiting for wars'. There must be a continuous sale of their products as in any other industry. in-dustry. To pass what amounts to confiscatory confis-catory legislation against an impor- tant industry and deprive us as a nation- of our source of instruments necessary to both national protection and law and order for the sake of a "crime preventative" which has constantly con-stantly failed in practice seems hardly the part of wisdom.