The surgeon noted, “One of the trauma surgeons opened a young victim in the operating room, and found only shreds of the organ that had been hit by a bullet from an AR-15... Nothing was left to repair—and utterly, devastatingly, nothing could be done to fix the problem. The injury was fatal.”

When I visited the War Remnants Museum in Saigon in January of 2018, I saw exhibits denouncing both the M-16 and the beehive rounds as war crime weapons. The Communists were obviously aware of the grievous injuries these weapons inflicted on their troops. But, they were weapons of war specifically designed to do maximum damage to human bodies. It is doubtful that anyone could have imagined 50 years ago that the civilian version of the M-16 would be commonplace on the streets of civilian America.

The rapid rate of fire of AR-15 style firearms, as well as their excellent killing power, have made them the weapon of choice of mass murder enthusiasts in the United States—Parkland (FL), Newtown (CT), Las Vegas (NV), San Bernardino (CA), Pittsburgh (PA), Aurora (CO), Sutherland Springs (TX) and, most recently Dayton (OH), where the shooter managed to kill 9 people and wound 17 others in just 32 seconds with an AR-15 pistol. Seems the Dayton guy was going for a world kill record with his 100-round magazines. Darn lucky the police were on the ball and able to end it quickly.

It is high time to get war weapons out of the hands of civilians and off of the streets and school grounds of America. We need to ban sales of assault rifles—all variants of the M-16, the Communist AK-47 and its variants (used recently in El Paso), and similar weapons designed to kill human beings quickly and effectively. In the process, all high capacity magazines should also be banned. This won’t stop all mass shootings, but it will start making a dent. We simply can’t sit on our hands and allow these war-weapon-assisted mass killings to continue devastating communities across the country.

Jim Jones is an Eden native and former Idaho Attorney General and former Idaho Supreme Court Chief Justice. His previous opinion work can be found at JJCommontater.com and in his new book, “Vietnam…Can’t Get You Out of My Mind.”

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