Gun referendum a slippery slope

Let’s talk about a very important referendum coming up called “An Act to Require Background Checks for Gun Sales.” Sounds OK – doesn’t it? By just reading the title most of the people in Maine would vote in favor of this … right? Well, let’s look a little deeper.

The person behind this is a mom who lost her daughter to an intruder who shot and killed her daughter. I feel for her and her family and I can appreciate why she might would initiate this referendum, however, I honestly believe that she is being duped by the antigun group headed by billionaire and anti-gun advocate Michael Bloomberg of Manhattan, and here’s why I say that.

Even though this referendum may appear as if it were a grass-roots movement of moms who belong to “Moms Demand Action,” the whole process was handled by a professional group out of Washington, D.C. called Fieldworks, LLC. This whole operation was a very expensive undertaking, so where did the thousands of dollars come from to actually get this referendum going and pay the hundreds of people out there soliciting signatures?

It seems that “Moms Demand Action” is actually under the umbrella of a master group called “Everytown for Gun Safety.” “Everytown” is financed by Bloomberg along with the dozens of smaller anti-gun groups with dozens of different names. So the majority of the dollars are coming from out of state, and again, there is an attempt to sway the votes of the citizens of Maine with thousands of dollars from the outside.

If you read the whole referendum question (available online under maine.gov), you see a list of rules and regulations that read from a federal document and not a simple Maine document. These background checks would cover more than private sales and extend to almost any transfer (gift, loan, or other temporary transfer) of a firearm. After reading all these regulations, ask yourself how the heck can I comply without breaking one of the regulations and put me at jeopardy for a fine or even arrest?

Since we already have background checks in this state when a Maine citizen wants to legally purchase a gun, ask yourself how any state or federal government can really enforce these sales and temporary gun transfer rules under this proposed new law without a gun registry?

Aha! So we get to the real core of this whole new background check issue … the government would really like to know who and what type of gun is owned by every legal gun owner in this state. So what’s wrong with that, you ask?

The first thing that happened in Britain and Australia before the government forcibly removed guns from the citizens who legally owned them were laws like extensive background checks that opened the door to gun registration laws. If we are so concerned about gun violence in this county – I really don’t read about too many statistics of that type of violence in our state, after all, this is Portland, not Chicago, Baltimore or Detroit – why is the state persecuting legal gun owners and not enforcing the existing laws and removing the criminals from the streets?

Remember the admonishment of our first president, George Washington:

“A free people ought not only be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which include their own government.”

Now ask yourself, if this referendum becomes law, are we, the citizens of Maine, more or less free if we are burdened with more rules to legally own guns?

All of the above information was gathered online by simply doing a Google search. Thanks for listening.

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