My Letter to to Senator Cruz for the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on "Proposals to Reduce Gun Violence: Protecting Our Communities While Respecting the Second Amendment".

Some of our better known gun rights activists have published the letters they wrote to Senator Cruz for the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on "Proposals to Reduce Gun Violence: Protecting Our Communities While Respecting the Second Amendment".

Clayton Cramer wrote a letter on Gun Control, Mental Illness, and Safety: A Letter for Ted Cruz.

David Kopel wrote a Letter to Senator Cruz on constitutional issues in federal gun control proposals.

These are letters from two of the heavy hitters in gun rights advocacy and are worth  your time in reading.   My letter to the subcommittee addressed the subject of mandatory background checks.  I feel that this is the area where we are most vulnerable.

February 7, 2013

Senator Ted Cruz
Ranking Member; U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights.
224 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Main: 202.224.5972

Dear Senator Ted Cruz   Mandatory Background Checks   I understand that the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights will be addressing “Proposals to Reduce Gun Violence: Protecting Our Communities While Respecting the Second Amendment”. I know we can count on you to ensure that this hearing does, in fact, respect our Second Amendment.

I am writing you today to comment on the issue of mandatory, or universal, background checks on the private sale of firearms. I adamantly oppose any such legislation. The ownership of private property is one of the cornerstones of our American heritage. We have always valued the right of a citizen to do with owned, private, property as they wish. Asking for government approval to transfer private property to a friend, a relative or an heir upon our death is in opposition to our inheritance as citizens of these United States.

Mandatory background checks will do nothing to achieve a goal of keeping guns out of the hands of felons. Felons and other criminals do not purchase firearms from the law abiding, they steal them from the law abiding or purchase them on the black market. Mandatory background checks will just be another law ignored by the criminals and only used to harass the law abiding.

Mandatory background check legislation will increase the value of guns on the black market and make the law abiding a more attractive target for thieves and robbers. Robbery and theft will increase as a result of legislation of this sort. Violent crime will not be deterred.

There are tens of millions of firearms in the hands of law abiding citizens. Any effort to require mandatory background checks on private sales of these firearms would obviously require the registering of these guns. Firearm registration will lead to confiscation. This is not a fear, this is a fact. Following Hurricane Katrina, the government did go around to citizens who had done nothing wrong and confiscate their firearms. The government confiscated firearms from citizens at a time when the law abiding needed them most. The government took away the only means of protection from citizens when gangs were looting, robbing and raping with abandon. Confiscation should never be allowed to happen again in these United States.

It is fiscally irresponsible to propose such costly, and ineffective, legislation at a time when our country is so deeply in debt.

Mandatory background checks will do nothing to address the criminal, the violent, or the ability of the violent criminal to acquire guns.

Please oppose any idea of going forward with mandatory background check legislation and focus instead on the violent criminal, the felon, the street gangs and other major sources of violent crime in this country.

Respectfully Yours   JR

Have you written your congress critters yet?