My overly long and overly passionate letter back to him:
Representative Hope,
Thank you for your response. I have watched your video, I have read the bill, and my opinion has not changed. The fact that WA Ceasefire supports this is enough reason to oppose it, but all of that aside, you appear to misunderstand your job. Your job is not to keep me safe. Your job is not to pass laws that require that I go to a police department and get government approval to engage in a voluntary transaction. Your job is not to make it so that law abiding citizens go get background checks that are "just that easy" when criminals laugh at you while ignoring your laws and doing business as they please. You think your way is easy? Their way is way easier. But once again, law abiding citizens who honor the rule of law are the ones that have their freedoms chipped away.
The idea that 'mentally ill' people should be prevented is scary. The definition of mentally ill is extremely subjective, and with a group of people who will stop at nothing to remove this right - and don't tell me groups like WA Ceasefire or Senators like Diane Feinstein aren't out to take ALL the guns, they are openly on record stating such - it is not hard in any way, shape, or form to imagine a future in which anyone who flies a Gadsden flag or participates in Tea Party rallies or 2A rallies or anything else objectionable to the left is labeled mentally ill. Or vice versa, once the right is in power again. After all, how many people say things like "liberalism is a mental disorder"? How many kids are ADHD? Will that eventually be included in the list of mental illnesses that prevent them from being free men and women? Who decides what is mentally ill? Anti-gun groups such as the
American Academy of Pediatrics or the
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (links to their stance on firearms - remove them all from the home)? When the doctors decide to call in parents to CPS because they have firearms in the home and the "medical experts" testify in court that the guns make the home "unsafe" for children, and families are ripped apart, it won't be so "common sense" then, will it? Don't tell me that won't happen - I have already been through a family law court battle where the "mental health care experts" testified that it's not good for children to spank them and ended up losing time with my daughter even though I'm the guy honoring the rule of law.
As for universal background checks? The bill says that many firearms are currently sold without a background check, allowing felons and other ineligible persons to gain access to them. Those people are already legally prevented from possessing a firearm. They currently buy them without a background check and they will continue to do so after your law making it double super illegal for them to have guns is put in place. The shooter in Connecticut violated 41 laws in the process of murdering those children. They are just as dead as if it had been a violation of one law.
I have done private transactions with firearms many times. Most people who do so ask to see a CPL. You cannot "fix" gun violence. They have tried that for a long time in Washington D.C. and Chicago and it only gets worse the more government control they create. The government doesn't need to try (and fail) to fix everything. Please stop passing reactionary laws on top of reactionary laws on top of reactionary laws.
You were right in your video that this is a politically risky thing to do. Remember that WA Ceasefire members wouldn't have voted for you anyway, and now you are causing harm to YOUR base as well. I and many others won't forget on Election Day. I urge you to reconsider before it's too late.
You, myself, and most everyone else I know are free men. We should not need to go to the police department and ask permission to use our rights - that makes them privileges, not rights. You, sir, should be ashamed that you are a part of making that happen.
Respectfully,
Andrew Brown
