I recently blogged an editorial by Yvonne Abraham in the Boston Globe re: the Bay State’s plans to create a one-gun-per-month purchasing restriction. I recently circled back to read the comments underneath the ed. This one by DMan jumped out at me. I managed to step to one side. But I thought you’d like to see who’s standing up for Massachusetts gun owners and why.
Yvonne, you present a simple argument that, on its own, can be viewed by people as ‘balanced’. But most people, perhaps even yourself, don’t know the rest of the story.
Articles and opinion pieces in the Globe such as yours make it appear that without this new law, Mass is a free-for-all gun owners playground. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mass ALREADY has strict STATE gun laws, which in turn are further interpreted and made stricter by LOCAL authorities. Legal, law-abiding Massachusetts gun owners do not want yet MORE restrictions placed upon them, especially laws that in the gun-owners view will not have an impact on criminals i.e. criminals don’t abide by laws anyway.
You say “this bill is it”, but what Patrick, DeLeo and others make it sound like is “this bill is all we got”.
It’s not. There are more effective ways to curb gun violence than to penalize the law abiders. Unfortunately its an election year, and any incumbent, and anyone else mildly anti-gun is jumping on this bandwagon.
Gun owners are absolutists? Maybe. But aren’t we all absolutists for things we don’t want messed with? Someone once said “Extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice”. He was a Republican. Regardless of your affiliation, I think its a valid statement that needs to be conjured up from time to time.