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.