OPINION/LETTER: Why protecting the Second Amendment matters – newportri.com

Why protecting the Second Amendment matters

I disagree with the recent letter urging the Tiverton Town Council to rescind the Second Amendment-related resolution passed two years ago. Had the writer researched the resolution, she would have discovered that it did not make Tiverton a sanctuary city.After some emotional testimony by a few individuals predicting that, if made so, the streets would run red with blood, the council adopted a compromise. The resulting resolution became a bulwark against the potential abuse inherent in so-called Red Flag laws, stating that the town will expend no resources in supporting them. It also reaffirmed that the citizens of Tiverton believed in the rule of law, specifically the state and federal constitutions, a concept frightening to progressives.

While red flag laws were sold to legislators by anti-firearms groups as public safety measures,their real intent was the creation of a tool to isolate and persecute individuals who choose to exercise their civil right to own a firearm. They allow anyone to make a phone call claiming someone they know (or don't like) is planning a mass shooting. With no warning, local police then descend on the individual, search their homes, confiscate their private property (firearms), arrest them and begin a lengthy investigation certain to ruin their lives and reputations, whether or not the accusation is true. The accused is never told who their accuser is and there is no penalty for making a false accusation. These are laws with the potential for extreme abuse. They also have the potential for wasting vast amounts of scarce police resources, things the town council, two years ago, recognized. If the current council rescinds the resolution, then theirs is a vote to sanction, and pay for with tax dollars, the persecution of local firearm owners, something that will not endear them to the majority of town residents.

Finally, I infer by the tone of the writer's letter that she is either a member of, or has been influenced by, one of the small, but noisy, anti-Second Amendment groups operating in the state. Her assertion that firearm owners are protected by the Second Amendment is laughable, considering that there are now 11bills (more on the way) in the R.I. Statehouse specifically designed to destroy firearms ownership in this state; all of them crafted with the heavy-handed aid of these groups.

And this prompts a gentle warning to all those reading this. These groups are notorious for lying to and deceiving their members in order to create and spread hysteria, thus advancing the political agenda of their wealthy out-of-state benefactors. Sadly, this callous practice often makes believers look foolish, at best, when faced with the truth.

Scott McCarthy,Tiverton

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OPINION/LETTER: Why protecting the Second Amendment matters - newportri.com