Dear St. Paul
City Council representatives and Mayor Coleman,
We are
shocked and appalled to hear that you would like to punish and strip the rights
of law abiding citizens in your specious and misguided quest for the illusion
of safety.
If you are
seeking to lessen violence committed with guns and implement “reform” measures,
you need to focus on the real issues: Our failed criminal justice system and
our failed ability to address the mental illness problem in this country. The
99.9% of firearms owners in the US
who are law abiding are not the problem, and will be the ones to suffer the
grave consequences of any mis-identified scapegoat and any mis-directed
“reforms.”
In fact, research
has shown that legal gun owners are MORE law abiding than the gen pop by a wide
margin (5.7 times less likely to be arrested for a violent offense and 13.5
times less likely to be arrested for a non-violent offense like DWI, etc. Those
numbers reach to 15 – 20 times less likely for Minnesota permit holders). Please do the
research before you take knee-jerk, misdirected action. (Learn the facts: http://www.gunfacts.info/pdfs/gun-facts/6.1/gun_facts_6_1_screen.pdf)
We must
stop erroneously focusing on the “inanimate object,” the gun. It’s pretty
simple: Our focus needs to be on the assailants – those people who commit
violence because of criminal propensity and/or mental instability. The worst
schoolhouse mass murder in our nation's history was not committed with a gun,
but with explosives. Some of the worst atrocities in our recent history, such
as the Oklahoma City Bombing or the 9/11 attacks, did not involve a single
firearm.
A New York woman beat her
husband to death with a coffee cup a few months ago. We wouldn't dream of
describing that act as "coffee cup violence," nor would we consider
banning coffee cups, would we? No, we wouldn't. Evil will always be present,
and deranged people intent on harm will always find another tool with which to
inflict harm. Banning every implement that deranged people or criminals use to
carry out mayhem is not the answer.
We do not
need more laws or the vanquishing of the rights of law abiding citizens. We
need to enforce the laws that already exist to punish law breakers and those
who harm others, and we need to place blame and solutions where it needs to be
placed: Criminal justice and sentencing reform; and mental health reform. Plus,
we all know that history has proven time after time that “gun bans” don’t work
(Chicago has
some of the strictest firearm laws in the country, yet they are a leader in
violence and shootings).
We urge
you to remember the basis on which this country was founded in the rich
tradition of liberty, and ask you to be the voice of the 80,000,000 of us who
exhibit the true face of law abiding “gun culture” in America. We
will not stand by and be treated like criminals for doing nothing wrong.