I sent the following email to Sen Truman Chafin (D-WV legislature) in response to the article referenced below.
The Honorable Sen Chafin:
Re:
the following article
Firearm protection bill advances in House » Today's Front Page »
The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia
With
all due respect, Senator Chafin, I am so disappointed at your spurious
arguments, as outlined in the above article, against gun control laws.
Why are you comparing the firearm death rate, of 60/100,000, of our soldiers,
scattered as they are throughout Afghanistan, with the firearm death rate of
80.6/100,000, of the concentrated population of Washington D C? Why do
you not, rather, compare those soldier deaths with the death rate per 100,000
in the whole of the United States, which is just 10.3 for 2011, or about
18.9/100,000 for a comparable 22 month period? Further, the significance
of high death rates in municipalities, such as in DC and Chicago, with strict
gun laws lies in the fact that people can readily buy guns in neighboring
jurisdictions and bring them back home. Legislation being considered in U
S Senate to strengthen gun trafficking laws, straw purchase laws, and
background checks would greatly reduce this problem, and receives overwhelming
support from citizens across the country, although not, regrettably, from their
elected legislators.
I think it is sad that you can make a “punch line” out of
these sad statistics, evoking laughter from the Senate.
The “frenzy in Congress to impose harsher gun limits” is
more than matched by the frenzy of the NRA to prevent the passage of even the
simplest and most obvious of gun control legislation, such as the expansion of
background checks.
It is amazing that the state can supersede, if HB 2760 passes,
the right of a municipality to restrict gun use, as they now can supersede the
right of a municipality to ban fracking within city limits, yet this same state
thinks it can defy the federal government if it tries to pass gun laws, just as
it defies the EPA when it tries to protect our air and water.
Nullification anyone? Perhaps the legislators should read up on Cooper
v Aaron,1958.
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