NRA’s interest are commercial

Bravo to Rep. Jamie Pedersen, D-Seattle, and the aptly named Rep. Mike Hope, R-Lake Stevens, for introducing common-sense legislation in Olympia to require background checks for all gun sales in our state [“Scaled-down gun bill fails to ease critics’ complaints,” NWThursday, Feb. 14].

An NRA representative testifying at the bill’s hearing on Wednesday called House Bill 1588 ineffective and fretted that it would adversely affect the majority of gun owners who are law-abiding citizens.

But according to a January New York Times/CBS News poll, 9 in 10 Americans favor background checks on all gun purchases, “including 9 in 10 of the respondents who said that there was a gun in their household, and 85 percent whose households include National Rifle Association members [New York Times, Jan. 17].”

It seems the NRA, once the champion of sportsmen and gun safety, has abandoned its membership in favor of the interests of gun manufacturers. A free and unregulated market for gun sales regardless of a buyer’s criminal history, intent or mental stability might mean good business for the people who make guns, but has proved a sad business for the rest of us.

--John and Nancy Gilbert, Seattle

Bill is part of cultural hysteria

I feel that I must comment on the Feb. 14 article, “Scaled-down gun bill fails to ease critics’ complaints.”

This is another proposed bill that is part of the mass hysteria that is currently afflicting our country, the hysterical belief that a perfect world will somehow be created by putting severe restrictions on the honest citizens who own guns. This particular bill would require universal background checks for all gun purchases, including private sales.

Ah yes, my little chickadee, the article stated, “Supporters say the bill ... would reduce the likelihood of mass shootings like the recent one in Connecticut.”

So just how would any kind of a background check have prevented Adam Lanza from murdering his mother and taking her guns?

When supporters of any proposed bill have to tell such an outrageous lie like that, then I have to wonder about what their bill would really do, and I have to question just what it is they’re really trying to do.

--Peter Karr, Bellevue