Pro-gun residents outnumber anti-gun residents at Contois Auditorium at a public forum in advance of four Burlington City Council resolutions that would regulate gun possession in October. / EMILY McMANAMY/FREE PRESS

Written by Patrick Finnie

To who it may concern (The Burlington City Council and mayor):

Are you serious? You want to have firearm owners lock their firearms in a safe, or use trigger or other locking devises when they are not in use? What do you suppose a home owner is supposed to do when confronted by an armed burglar hopped up on crack in their home? Call the police department?

What is the response time? Unless they are outside the door, you’re dead! Do you suppose that the crackhead will wait for you to take off your trigger lock or open your safe and load your firearm?

The other two proposals are equally draconian. Confiscating a firearm because someone may or may not be guilty of a domestic crime is not acceptable. What happened to the “good old days” when someone was “presumed to be innocent until proven guilty?” Throw that one out the window too?

Lord knows that no one who is in the midst of a domestic separation ever lies to further their agenda.

The last item on Burlington’s agenda to dismantling the 2nd Amendment seems logical at first to anybody who doesn’t think too long or objectively about it. After all, only a complete idiot thinks that guns and alcohol mix well. But to deny the right to protect one’s self in a situation because you presume that person is under the influence simply because of his or her choice to frequent an establishment that serves alcohol is making a leap that a judge and or jury would not and should not make. That person may be in that restaurant for a meal only. That person may be in that bar as a
“designated driver.”

Now on to the hidden agenda, and perhaps (at least to me) the most important possibility of this entire charade. If the voters of Burlington were to pass this abomination, this insult to honest responsible citizens, it will go to Montpelier where our legislators would weigh in on the justification and or need for this.

On the outside chance that they would even bring it to a vote on the floor, much less pass this insult, let’s play devil’s advocate. I believe that there are 251 towns in the state of Vermont. That means the possibility of 251 different view points on what should or should not be allowed in those jurisdictions.

What? That would be anarchy. An honest citizen would be lost in all the different versions of firearms regulations. Is that really the point of this agenda ?

Patrick Finnie lives in Calais.