To the Editor:

Re “It’s Too Late to Ban Assault Weapons” (Editorial Observer, Aug. 17 ):

Alex Kingsbury argues that since there are many millions of assault weapons already in private hands, it would be useless now to make their sale illegal.

Had the sale of assault rifles been illegal, the El Paso killer would not have been able to buy one in the weeks before he went on a rampage that killed 22 Walmart shopper s.

All sorts of products found to be dangerous have been taken off the market, including drugs and toys, either voluntarily or by law. Perhaps most famously, General Motors’ Corvair was taken out of production after Ralph Nader exposed it as “Unsafe at Any Speed.”

To allow the continued sale of assault weapons is to add to the likelihood of more mass slaughter in acts of domestic terrorism. Congress should expedite a law to ban them.