To the editor:

The surviving Boston bomber will face charges of using weapons of mass destruction. The pressure cooker bombs killed three people. That number of fatalities pales in comparison to the 20 children and six adults massacred at Sandy Hook Elementary School last December. There, the killer’s arsenal included an assault rifle and high-capacity magazine clips. It’s puzzling that those horrific instruments of extreme firepower escape the definition of “weapons of mass destruction” according to our legal and moral standards.

George W.’s main pretext for going to war with Saddam’s Iraq was questionable from the start. He claimed that the “evil doer’s” regime was manufacturing WMD’s. Had President Bush searched his own backyard, he would have found a veritable cornucopia of WMD’s right here in America. This grievous reality eludes countless lawmakers beholden to the National Rifle Association and easily manipulated by gun rights extremists. Truth be said, we live in a country where flag-waving gun toters revere their weapons of mass destruction as much as apple pie and Fourth of July picnics.