Letter To Sen Ayotte: "Please, you are supposed to work for us-not the gun industry fronted by NRA"

[kpete]

Letter: Ayotte is supposed to work for us, not the NRA

For the Monitor
Tuesday, May 14, 2013


I’m sorry, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, but I call b.s. on your supposedly setting the record straight about your vote on strengthening background checks (“I voted to expand background check system,” Monitor Forum, May 7).

Please, your constituents are not stupid! You gave a bogus reason for voting against the Manchin-Toomey amendment (fear of a national registry) even though that was specifically excluded in the wording.

The bill you did vote for was a National Rifle Association-backed one that experts said would actually weaken the background check system and allow more severely mentally ill access to guns.

Are you unable to admit an error of judgement after you noticed your popularity tanking after your no vote? I would have a lot more respect for you if you could just admit you were wrong and that you would reconsider in light of better understanding of the Manchin-Toomey amendment and be willing to change your vote when it comes up again. Goodness, even Sen. Jeff Flake admitted his error after his poll results came out. Trying to double down on your faulty reasoning and also trying to tell us that you really did vote to strengthen background checks is misleading and dishonest. Nice try!

Please, you are supposed to work for us – the vast majority of your constituents who want to strengthen background checks – not the gun industry fronted by the NRA.

CATHARINE FARKAS

Sanbornton
http://www.concordmonitor.com/opinion/6222999-95/letter-ayotte-is-supposed-to-work-for-us-not-the-nra

[badtoworse]

1. Many gun owners do not want background checks that tie the individual to a specific gun...

or even record whether he / she purchased a gun at all. They simply do not trust the government with that information. Given all the current scandals, does anyone here believe the government is not above abusing such information?

I support background checks. They should be in the form of an ID card that is issued after the government has confirmed that you are not precluded from owning a firearm. Once you have that, you show it at the gun shop and purchase your gun.

[DanTex]

2. Yes, many gun owners are paranoid nutjobs. We know.

[badtoworse]

3. Yes, and many here will naively jeopardize their civil rights by trusting a government...

...that has shown it does not deserve to be trusted.

Forget partisanship for a moment and look at what is going on with the IRS. This is fundamentally about government officials abusing confidential information. If the IRS would do it (they have admitted as much), why should we believe some other agency would be any different?

[DanTex]

4. Guns and civil rights have nothing to do with each other.

I would happily trade the "right" to be able to buy a gun with no background check or paper trail in order to reduce illegal gun trafficking and cut down on gun violence. The right to life is much more important than some fictional right to unchecked gun purchasing.

I'm curious what you actually think the government is going to do with the background check paper trail. Care to spell out the paranoid fantasy?

[badtoworse]

5. I can think of two things they could do: Tax guns or confiscate them

I'm strongly opposed to both and I believe it would be much more difficult to accomplish either of those things without knowing what firearms people own. Sorry, I'm not willing to trust the government with that information and current events are showing my lack of trust to be well founded.

On the civil rights issue, I suggest you read Heller and McDonald.

[DanTex]

6. Yeah, I don't agree with Scalia on much. But I'm not surprised that you seem to be a big fan.

If the government decides to tax (they already do) or confiscate guns, then background checks won't be much of an issue, will they?

Confiscating guns has nothing to do with abuse of information -- that would require a new law, voted on by congress and signed by the president. If the people decide that certain kinds of guns should be outlawed, like they did in the UK or Australia, and the government acts on the will of the people, that's not "abuse".

Funny how the whole issue of 30,000 people killed every year with guns doesn't seem to matter much to you NRAers, it's all about the paranoid fantasies, but the actual real people being killed every day don't show up on the radar screen.

[badtoworse]

7. I am very concerned about the current level of gun violence

I just don't agree with you about the cause and what needs to be done to fix the problem.