Last weekend, I opened up the paper to discover a letter to the editor, full of personal jabs and mistruths, that blamed Sen. Collins for nearly every problem facing our country and ridiculed her mercilessly for working to be part of a solution on gun safety legislation.

I was surprised to see that something so wrong could not only get into the paper, but be featured so prominently with a false caption that Sen. Collins “waited 10 years after the Sandy Hook rampage to advocate national firearm safety legislation.”

Since the writer is misinformed, please allow me to set the record straight: In the wake of Sandy Hook in 2013, Sen. Collins voted for Manchin-Toomey, a bipartisan bill that would have expanded background checks. In 2016, she was the lead author of a “No-Fly, No-Buy” bill that would have prevented people deemed too dangerous to fly on an airplane from buying a gun.

In the last five years, she’s also supported efforts to strengthen the background check system, improve reporting between federal and state officials, ban bump stocks, and crack down on straw purchasing. Now she’s working with the Senate’s lead gun safety advocate, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., on a bipartisan compromise that could include expanded background checks and something like Maine’s yellow flag law.

Count me among the millions of Americans who are frustrated that sometimes Congress just can’t get anything done. But inventing falsehoods and demonizing dealmakers like Sen. Collins, who are trying to find a path forward, just moves us further away from any solutions.

Arthur Kyricos
York Harbor