I am interested in the editorial in the March 14 Press Herald headlined “Our View: Concealed carry permits are public documents.”

The logic behind that opinion raises several questions. Many government documents are not public. Who decides which are public and which are not?

A few years ago, my car was parked in the parking lot at a marina. When I came out, two other cars had blocked me in.

I called the local police to find the owners of those cars. The police would not call the state Motor Vehicles Bureau to identify the owners. Apparently that information is not public.

I am the property manager at a church in Portland. We often find cars parked in our lot that interfere with snowplowing and other activities.

The Portland police will not identify for us the owners of these cars. Apparently that information is not public.

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So I question why public documents pertaining to motor vehicles are not available to the public, while the Portland Press Herald considers that public documents pertaining to concealed-carry are.

Allen J. Bingham

Scarborough

 

While it is true that public disclosures of concealed-weapons licenses are essential to accountable government, that is not, for this reader, the most compelling reason for them.

Citizens may be entitled to fill their own properties with all the guns and ammunition they can legally acquire, so that they can defend their homes against marauding bureaucrats and liberals gone wild. And they may be entitled to fire their weapons on their own properties or those of their like-minded friends and neighbors.

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But no citizen should fear for his or own safety when in public spaces or on the public ways.

Jurisdictions far and wide erect caution signs, yellow blinking lights, railroad crossing warnings, etc., to prevent harm to the unsuspecting from the missteps (however innocent) of others in command of equipment capable of doing inordinate and unexpected harm. A gun is such a piece of equipment.

An unconcealed gun carried on a public way by a stranger not in uniform is frightening. Even more frightening is the prospect that the man or woman approaching you from down the street might have such a weapon concealed – and you have no way of knowing it.

If we must have concealed weapons in public – which is questionable – who has them should be regularly published public information.

Sylvia Kraemer

Portland

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The gun owners of Maine are beginning to awaken to the terrible shadow of doubt and blame being put on them by the anti-gun people and the media.

Most, if not all, gun owners were more shocked by and sorrowful at the heinous act committed at Newtown, Conn., than ordinary citizens. They knew what was going to happen next as the president, media and the antis pointed at them.

Well, with the recent anti-gun rhetoric and articles in the Maine media, I have decided, “Enough.”

Those who spout this ignorant garbage cannot do it without a cost. I’ve been a loyal customer of Downeast Energy for 30 years, but the recent bias shown by their former president, John Peters, was the last straw.

I refer to the front-page article in the March 1 Portland Press Herald (“Business safety concerns vs. gun permit holders”). It was written to cast concealed-weapons permit holders as less trustworthy than John Q. Public, and that is not so. Therefore, I am changing energy companies!

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It is time that gun owners spoke up and made those who point the finger know the cost of such wrong and hurtful words. Actions speak louder than words!

It is time that gun owners tell advertisers they will not trade with them if they continue to do business with newspapers that are not fair and unbiased.

It is time to not frequent those companies that put disparaging words out about the more than 99 percent of gun owners who are law-abiding and trustworthy.

Those who hold concealed-weapons permit holder status have been vetted well and do not deserve the implication that they are lawbreakers. It has to stop! And it will if we all act.

George A. Fogg

North Yarmouth

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Second Amendment backer opponent of assault rifles

 

While I support the Second Amendment, I would like someone to tell me why anyone needs an assault rifle or a gun with more than 10 rounds to protect oneself from an intruder – or for any other reason.

Walt Stephenson

Falmouth

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Critics of gun control voice paranoid views on the future

 

I have become somewhat alarmed when reading recent letters to the editor in your paper.

The people who have written in support of the Second Amendment and stopping gun-control discussions are exhibiting the reason we need to have this discussion along with providing access to and improving mental health care.

The paranoid tone of these letters and their scenarios of “defending ourselves” against the government and impending conversion of the United States into some Third World dictatorship is the very reason we need to limit what the average citizen is allowed to “bear” in regard to arms.

I think we have come a long way from the period when this document was drafted and the circumstances that inspired it. Limits need to be set regarding weapons other than muskets.

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Should the average citizen be allowed to have an M60 machine gun? Hand grenades? No. Laws are in place to prevent the average citizen from possessing these weapons. Are these laws in violation of the “right to bear arms”? Or are they just common sense?

I have served in the Army and have a gun safe at home with several rifles and shotguns that I use for hunting. The government does not want to take these from me, regardless of what the National Rifle Association constantly refers to as “the slippery slope.” In what paranoid scenario is the National Guard coming for your family and you are holding them back with your 30-round clips and your Bushmaster?

Your defense against the government is the vote. It’s not a perfect system, but it prevents the minority from imposing its will on the majority with fear tactics and paranoid delusions.

As dysfunctional as Washington is, they are not plotting enslavement of the American people, despite what the NRA, Fox News or Rush Limbaugh reports.

John Glenn

Portland

 


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