The following was sent to Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown. A copy was provided for publication.
While I deeply sympathize with the loss of your family member to a murderous criminal, I fail to understand how a well-educated man with as much all-around experience as your TV ads claim, just does not get the point. It was not the gun but the warped mind of a violent criminal who grossly misused a gun in place of a knife, ax, sword, hammer, tire tool, mixed martial arts or anything handy to commit whatever evil deed was on his warped mind at the time. It's those criminals who should be removed permanently from our society!
What is worse is that while you and your party are so anxious to totally disarm most honest Americans who will obey your anti-gun laws, you work overtime to make life easier and more pleasant for the damned criminals among us who obey no laws: e.g. you eliminated the death penalty [its worst feature was how seldom it was imposed], and you campaign to lower bail, shorten prison terms, give more rights and provide more comforts for prisoners, they have apparently ended "exiling the worst criminals to distant prisons" and you encourage the influx of illegal aliens to Maryland – even those with MS 13 tattoos – who possess few marketable skills, poor if any command of English and will live here forever at the expense of Maryland's working taxpayers. Will you next, as in England, eliminate the "castle doctrine" and punish a gun-less homeowner for daring to defend his home with a cricket bat against a gun toting criminal? Shame on them and those here who think that way!
Laws cannot make guns go away any more than laws can make crime and drugs go away. Someone will always find a way to import, smuggle, locally grow or factory-produce illegal drugs or illegal guns to sell at huge profits to those most likely to use them criminally against Maryland taxpayers who pay your salary. And look with shame at the present foolishness about legalizing marijuana! Can you possibly believe that greater availability of pot will help create more: responsible citizens, safer drivers, ambitious workers, better students, better parents or less "graduates" to harder drugs and more crime?
God bless and protect what's left of America.
Elliot Deutsch
Bel Air