Subject: The thugs now reign in Massachusetts
I read your columns regularly, and enjoy them immensely. Thank you for speaking the truth. Please accept my heartfelt wishes for a long and happy life and career.
The title of your March 12 column "The thugs now reign in Massachusetts" has a lot more meaning that perhaps even you realize.
Under a 1998 law, I became a felon on my last birthday. I've never had any contact with the law beyond a speeding ticket some years ago, but by the stroke of a pen I am now a felon. I became a felon because I own a gun and I refuse to go to the local police station every 4 years for mug shots and a full set of fingerprints, and I won't immediately notify the state authorities whenever I move. If I had been convicted of murder, the cops would have my fingerprints, and once I finished prison and parole I could live anywhere I wanted without telling any official about it. But because I own a gun, I am treated far worse than convicted murderers.
Understand, I'm not talking about carrying a concealed handgun., or even "assault weapons" (though the new law has many draconian punishments for people who dare to own a semi-auto.) Under this law, possession of ANY gun, any cartridge (spent or not), any powder, primers, bullets, wads, or shot, even a can of pepper spray, requires me to be fingerprinted and mug shot. The data is kept by the state's Criminal History Systems Division - the same folks who keep the records on murderers, rapists, and other convicted criminals. The fingerprints and mug shots of lawful gun owners in this state are instantly available to law enforcement agencies nationwide (and probably worldwide) thru the FBI's NCIC system.
It gets even worse. I'm not only a felon for the 25-year old 12-gauge pump shotgun that I keep in the closet, I'm a felon for not keeping it locked (and therefore useless) at all times. Locking my front door doesn't count as "preventing unauthorized persons from gaining access to the firearm." I have no children but the state mandates that I render myself completely defenseless to any criminal who cares to rob or kill me. God only knows what will happen to me if I ever have to use the shotgun to defend myself. I suspect I'd end up in prison, and pay restitution to the criminal whose "rights" I "violated."
The penalties for all these new crimes is 10 years in prison. Since I could get charged with a separate count for each round of ammo, that brick of .22 cartridges I bought for my grandfather's single-shot match rifle could get me 50,000 years . This is not a theoretical calculation: a Wayland man is facing 70 years for "unsafe storage" of his firearms: 7 counts of 10 years each. (Contact goal.org for collaboration and details of this case and my statements about the new laws.)
It's bad being a felon and living in fear. I go to sleep every night wondering if the door will be smashed in by ninja-suited, armored, machine-gun toting thugs that will kill me where I stand if I so much as reach for that shotgun. It won't really matter much to me then if they were free-lance crooks or professional, government-paid murders. I suppose I should move out of state, but my family has been here for generations, my job is here, and I won't be run off my own property by a bunch of bullies, legal or otherwise.
I'm feeling quit alone here. The ACLU has abandoned Massachusetts gun owners on the left, and the NRA just betrayed them on the right. The ACLU just pursued a case to the US Supreme Court on whether or not certain violent convicted criminals must surrender DNA samples for a databank. (The Supremes declined to hear the case.) The ACLU spent enormous effort on behalf of 10,000 (by their own count) criminals. The ACLU says that it opposes the suspicionless collection and dissemination of fingerprints, and fought the Georgia fingerprint-on-your-drivers-license law vigorously. But a million gunowners are forced, under penalty of fines and imprisonment, to give up their fingerprints, and the ACLU won't even answer my letters on the subject, much less make a statement, a press release, or file a court case, like they do for murderers.
On the right, the NRA now stands with HCI in vowing to put people like me behind bars. I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't hear and see the video recordings on the NRA website. "You touch a gun in Colorado, and you're gonna have five years in a state or federal penitentiary." says Wayne LaPierre, standing on the stage with Wellington Webb and HCI spokesmen. Under their Project Exile, anyone caught with an illegal gun gets tried in federal court. What the NRA doesn't seem to understand, or perhaps just doesn't care about, is that here in Massachusetts, my guns were made illegal by the stroke of a pen. If I ever get caught with them, I could very well end up being tried in both Federal and State courts, in a Kafka-like race to see who can come up with the longest mandatory sentence.
I'm scared Mr. Suprynowicz, I'm angry, and I feel terribly alone. The ACLU turns a blind eye on massive violations of its own principles, the NRA has betrayed all gun owners, GOAL, JPFO, SAF, and all the others I send money to can't help me, and my own so-called representative co-sponsored this new law. This must be something akin to what the Jews in Germany felt in the late 1930's. Gunowner's have been cut out of the herd, demonized, ostracized, and blamed for everything wrong with society. We hav much better technology today for tracking and finding people that the Nazis did, so when the final solution comes, I don't hold out much hope for running, hiding, or fighting. My only hope is that I die a peaceful death before that day comes.
The thugs now reign in Massachusetts. They reign in the statehouse, in the courts, in the media, and in the police. One million obedient sheeple have meekly surrendered their fingerprints and now carry state-mandated papers for having the temerity to exercise their inalienable right to self-defense. They might as well make them wear special arm bands. I don't know how many there are like me out there, but I doubt that we'll be around for much longer.
Please excuse my using an anonymous email. I'm not paranoid, they are truly out to get me. Feel free to use any of my whining as you see fit: I only ask that you change the style a bit if you use very much of it, as I've been published on other topics, and it is very possible that the FBI or some other agency could match the style of those documents with this one.
Thank you, and keep up the good work.