Please email your federal senators and ask them to oppose Sen. Dianne Feinstein's 2013 gun and magazine ban. You can go to www.nraila.org to get more information.

She wants to ban all sales, transfer, importation and manufacturing of almost all semi-automatic rifles and shotguns with detachable magazines, along with all shotguns and rifles with pistol grips, by calling them "assault weapons." These weapons are used for competitive/recreational target shooting and hunting.

Under Feinstein's plan, all Americans will be required to register their "assault weapon" with the federal government under the National Firearms Act (NFA). Further, you must pay a $200 tax for each firearm.

You will not be permitted to sell them or pass them on to your children upon your death. Under Feinstein's bill, when a gun owner dies their "assault weapons" will be forfeited to the U.S. government.

Most people think an "assault weapon" as a full automatic weapon such as a machine gun, which means all you have to do is pull the trigger once and the gun keeps firing multiple bullets until you release the trigger.

By definition a semi-automatic weapon is a weapon that you have to pull the trigger each time you want to fire one bullet. Semi-automatic weapons are not assault weapons.

DANIEL A. RUSSIE, West Richland