Do we really want the government to have a record of every gun?

To the editor:

In regards to the column and political cartoon by Chuck Legge published Dec. 30, 2012, I believe it was a very sarcastic, condescending and elementary reaction to a tragedy.

Legge thought it was cute to refer to citizens who hold the Second Amendment sacred as understanding Obama’s gun control campaign as a “code” interpreted as “the angry man is commin’ ta git ’em.” Legge must of thought he was just as entertaining and sharp-witted as President Obama when he referred to some Americans as “gun or Bible-clinging.”

Legge was incorrect when he stated that there is no way to check registration or identify a gun. I don’t watch the CSI television series, but I have family members who are police lieutenants and district attorneys, and I am familiar with the protocol required to purchase guns through the Federal Firearm License agency. There is the Public Safety Network that serves to provide public safety officers with the identity of guns through their serial numbers. However, there are many firearms that are not registered, like the gun my great-grandfather had when he crossed the United States in a covered wagon to settle in North Dakota. There are also plenty of guns unregistered coming in from Mexico, to our never-ending supply of criminals who don’t abide by laws. (A reader would be advised to look-up our current administration’s recent “Fast and Furious” debacle that took the life of a federal agent.)

Washington, D.C., has some of the strongest gun laws in the union, yet its crime rate is only rising, and law-abiding citizens have an extremely difficult time obtaining a gun that fits in the narrowing category of guns and ammunition they are allowed to own.

In closing, do we really want the government to have a record of every gun we have, whether it is a family heirloom, sporting device, hunting instrument or weapon used for defense of property or life?

I talked at length with a man from Vietnam. He came to America and became a citizen because even he, at the time he decided to leave his country, understood that our Constitution would guarantee him all the liberties he did not have. In Vietnam, citizens are not allowed to have any weapon, save a knife. They also understand that they dare not go against their government’s decisions, because they are told their restrictions are for the common good, not individual rights.

Linda Buhler

Wasilla