An open letter to Stephen Kulik and Susannah Whipps Lee:
Dear Steve and Susannah,
I was very concerned to read in Wednesday’s Recorder that you, along with a number of other legislators, were trying to stand in the way of Attorney General Maura Healey’s attempt to enforce the 1998 assault weapons ban by “focusing on what she called ‘copycat’ versions of duplicates of firearms banned under that law.”
This seems to me to be the job of the Attorney General, to make sure the laws of the Commonwealth are enforced. Although the letter describes these directives as “new directions,” Attorney General Healey’s statement in the paper says that she is simply enforcing the law as it is written.
If assault weapons are banned, then surely it makes sense that “copycat assault weapons” should be banned, also, and the fact that no other AG has attacked this problem doesn’t seem to be a reason for Ms. Healey not to.
I was especially disappointed that the letter signed by Steve and Susannah states that Ms. Healey is attempting to enforce “a whole new law that unfairly infringes on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners in Massachusetts.” How can enforcing a law outlawing copycat assault weapons infringe on someone’s “Second Amendment rights?”
Only in a world where gun owners feel that any kind of gun control infringes on their rights would this be true. It is Ms. Healey’s job to enforce the laws of the Commonwealth. Let her do that job.
There should be no place in a civilized society for the average person to be able to buy assault weapons — copycat or not.
Anthony Palmieri
Mary-Ann DeVita Palmieri
New Salem