I read with interest John Arnold’s letter about Germany only disarming some of its citizens. I guess it was just a coincidence that the Jews were the ones Hitler planned to send to the death camps.

Hitler had to strip the Jews and others of weapons they could use to defend themselves. If not, when his officers came to collect a family for the death camps, the father might pull out his shotgun and kill one of his agents. If that happened often enough, it would have impacted his plans to kill all Jews.

Thomas Jefferson told us over 200 years ago that if you give up your weapons, you become servants to those who don’t. When a background check is completed for the purchase of a weapon, I am sure the data is retained by the federal government. What we are doing is pre-registering our firearms.

The intent of the president’s proposal is for a background check to be made for all transfers. How many of the mass shootings would have been prevented by having all firearm sales verified? How many of the 13,756 murders in 2009 were committed by people using rifles? According to data from U.S. Census Bureau, it was 358.

You are more likely to be killed by a knife or meat cleaver. Remember the elementary school attack in China by a man with a meat cleaver?

Knox Bennett

Clover