Proposes Senate Bill in Michigan/gun storage

[grampster]

Below is a copy of an e mail that I sent to Senators in Michigan who's committee will look at the bill proposed below:

 
Senate Bill 268, introduced by State Senator Martha Scott (D-2), would undermine a citizen’s right to self-defense by imposing onerous storage requirements on Michigan gun owners, rendering firearms useless in self-defense situations. 

SB 268 would require households with children to store their guns in locked boxes with trigger locks installed.  A violation would be punishable as a misdemeanor offense if a juvenile gains access to the firearm. 

The bill has been assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee but has not been scheduled for a hearing.
 

My message:

Senators:

As a former police officer and retired businessman who has owned and handled firearms most of my life, I hope you will see the wisdom in killing S-268. This bill is just one more ill conceived law by a busy body legislator that has more time on her hands than brains. It does not deserve to see the light of day.

I regret my choice of words in the 2nd to last sentence in the paragraph above. I tried to be more polite, but the longer I thought about what Ms. Scott is trying to do, I discovered that my comments were about as polite a response to her machination as she deserved.

Just think about what a dangerous place the Michigan Legislature would become if your legislative veto pens were locked up the way she wants to lock up our personal firearms. Think about how much drivel would get passed into law if you had to hustle to find your pen safe, find the key or remember the combination in a stressfull situation, open the pen safe and assemble the ink cartridge to the pen body, put it back together or find the key or combination to the locked clicker on the pen and then try and save the people from another act of insanity.

Cordially,
grampster

[longeyes]

There comes a point where legitimate concern about children becomes not only inimical to more radical civil liberties (the Second Amendment, in this case) but socially counter-productive.  We have an increasing amount of legislators who place emotion above reason.

[Standing Wolf]

We have an increasing amount of legislators who place emotion above reason.

It may be emotional; it may be yet another cold-blooded attempt to make it more difficult and expensive for the workers and peasants to rise above themselves by believing they have a right to keep and bear arms.

[longeyes]

Quite so.

And it is ironic that legislation like this will put more children in peril.

Of course there's also the additional irony that "children" are responsible for an increasing amount of gun crime in this country.  I mean, of course, juvenile gangbangers.

[Gewehr98]

Not to take away from the gravity of the situation, but I doubt I would've used the term "killing" in an email sent to a representative regarding a piece of gun control legislation.

[grampster]

Actually, there was intent behind the word, Gew.

[Gewehr98]

Oh, it wasn't lost on me.

My own letters to elected representatives get scrutinized a bazillion times before I finally send them. 

I figure that anything that can be taken out of context usually will, so my editorial functions kick into overdrive... 

[grampster]

I really wasn't expecting my e-mail to be taken too seriously.  My muse led me into the Pen Safe notion as I was typing the first part of it as a grumble to get some steam off after I'd read she'd put it through again.  I never intended to send it till I thought my comparison seemed to be pretty funny.

Commissar Scott introduces that piece of sh...drivel every year.