Gun Control Compromise
I want to hunt. I attended my state-mandated hunter education course on April 16, over four months ago, and still haven’t received my license to purchase a firearm. Depending on when it finally arrives, I might miss goose hunting season altogether. So I empathize with the gripes Tom Vannah lists in his recent column (“A Gun Owner’s Resentment,” Aug. 28).
Yes, the state acutely needs to streamline the process for lawfully purchasing a firearm. But having held very ambivalent views toward gun control for years, I take issue with Vannah’s blanket condemnation of the recently passed state legislation, which deserves a nuanced response. The new law establishes a number of regulations that don’t infringe upon the rights of law-abiding citizens to purchase a gun: it authorizes licensed gun dealers to access criminal records, creates a state police gun-trafficking unit, and joins Massachusetts in the National Instant Background Check System.
While generally leaning in favor of the bill, I concur with Vannah’s thesis that the law might have been based on political expedience. I’ve asked a number of lawmakers how they voted on the final legislative package, and why. The most pointed was this response from a legislator: “How often do you get to vote ‘Yes’ for a bill that’s supported by both the Gun Owners Action League and [gun-control group] Moms Demand Action?”
In the current political environment, shouldn’t we be happy that laws are being crafted out of rarely found political compromise?
Hated Gun Owners
Gun control is not about crime and violence; this is about the systematic dismantling of a socially conservative voting bloc. The gun controllers see the Second Amendment as a rallying point for people who disagree with all the failed leftist policies that we’ve been saddled with the past several decades. The gun grabbers feel that, if they remove guns from the equation, they can fracture this voting bloc and thus usher in another round of morally bankrupt liberal social and economic policies.
Massachusetts gun owners need to understand that the gun control movement hates your guts. They want to neutralize you politically, stigmatize you socially, and isolate you culturally. They hate you because, as long as you have a gun in your hand, you are beholden to nobody. The thought of the freedom that is attendant to gun ownership terrorizes the gun grabbers. Don’t forget that.
Casino Fallacies
In response to the recent letter from Kathy Mullins of Chicopee concerning the possible casino in Springfield (“Casino Opposition ‘Selfish’,” Aug. 21) Mullins says she would “appreciate seeing letters from the people who live in Springfield so their voices can be heard… .” Mullins assumes everyone who lives in Springfield favors a casino. Nothing could be further from the truth. I live in Springfield and have been actively working against locating a casino here. I am not alone. Many who initially voted for the casino now realize what a mistake they are.
Mullins’ entire argument rests on the assumption that casinos further economic development. Again, nothing could be further from the truth. Casinos drain local economies by ruining local businesses, providing mostly lousy jobs to a few, and requiring huge outlays of money from local governments to provide for all the problems created: increased crime, lower property values, and domestic violence, to name a few.
