The tragedy at Sandy Hook last month was nothing short of horrific. I cannot even begin to fathom the anguish that the families of the victims are experiencing. They will all forever be in my thoughts and prayers.
It is unfortunate, however, that rather than using Sandy Hook to address the “out of control” violence in our society, activists, the media, and anti-gun politicians are exploiting Sandy Hook to promote a political agenda that does nothing to prevent crime or improve public safety. The Journal News, for example, recently published the names and addresses of licensed gun owners across New York's Westchester and Rockland counties in order to exploit promote their anti-gun agenda. These gun owners are law-abiding citizens. How dare they try to connect lawful gun owners with the heinous acts that animal committed in Sandy Hook! Janet Hasson, president and publisher of The Journal News Media Group, you are an embarrassment to your profession. I encourage everyone, everywhere to immediately boycott The Journal News they show some guts and fire Janet Hasson.
In another shallow attempt to try to connect law-abiding gun owners with Sandy Hook, Connecticut State Representative Stephen D. Dargan (D-New Haven) introduced a bill that would make public the names and addresses of lawful gun permit holders in Connecticut under the state's Freedom of Information Act. Lawful gun owners are not the problem Mr. Dargan, the bad guys are the problem. Your time would be much better spent trying to address the abhorrently high crime rate in your district instead of harassing law-abiding gun owners.
I also find it alarming how easily some are willing to relinquish rights granted them by the Constitution. Like it or not, we are in a dangerous period in our history. We have a President that disregards the Constitution whenever it conflicts with his agenda and we have politicians like Mr. Dargan and his fellow democrats in Hartford and in D.C. that are focused on eroding citizen rights. It is incumbent on us to remind our political leaders that the first ten Amendments to the Constitution, including the Second Amendment, are called the Bill of Rights for a reason; these are rights that are NOT to be violated by the Government.
Some folks would have you believe that our founding fathers intended the Second Amendment to apply only to militias. This is done either through ignorance, or intentional indifference, because it is abundantly clear from the writings of our founding fathers that they intended the Second Amendment to be protection against the government. The very words of Thomas Jefferson support this fact.
"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in Government." Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
I am confident that lawful gun owners will support reasonable legislation that is specifically directed to keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill. I am equally confident that they will strongly oppose senseless restrictions on the Second Amendment, such as those recently enacted in New York and proposed by obama, that do nothing except criminalize law-abiding gun owners, target shooters and hunters, and do nothing to prevent crime or improve public safety. Do they really think that a criminal is going to care if they have a seven (7) round magazine or not? Do they think criminals will be lining up to register their firearms?
I sincerely hope that our political leaders have the will and the wisdom to stay clear of Second Amendment and The Bill of Rights for the good of an already fractured and divided Nation. Based on recent events in Connecticut, New York and Washington, I fear that they have neither.
Ralph J. Mancini
Danbury, CT
