State Sen. Tonya Schuitmaker votes for bill to exempt Michigan-made guns from federal regulations | MLive.com.

Dear State Senator Schuitmaker,

I read the article above and I understand the political drive that stands behind your decision to pursue this action but as a concerned citizen of Kalamazoo Michigan I beg you to reconsider your actions. Regulating guns is actually part of the directive from the Second Amendment, an amendment that I know you hold very near and dear to your heart. The text of it contains this phrase “A well-regulated militia” and so, in that context we both can agree.  The state has a well-regulated militia, represented primarily by the National Guard, and all the state, county, town, and township Police. What makes Michigan-made guns so special? Do you think that somehow exempting Michigan from these regulations, which you know would never work anyways, would somehow bring jobs, money, or praise to our beleaguered state? The answer Senator is not more guns, but well-regulated militias. Well regulated militias with well-regulated guns.

Let us put talk about politics aside just briefly and discuss what I am really getting at here. How many people must be killed before guns lose their allure to you? How many perforated children must lie dead at your feet for you to consider that perhaps stricter controls on guns, and yes, gun manufacturing may be a good idea? I and the rest of the citizenry would really quite like to know. If you have not seen the news recently we have two epidemics sweeping the land. One is influenza, and the other is gun crimes. While there is little to nothing that a legislator can do about influenza, you can do something about access to guns for these criminals. Let us speak plainly here, people are broken. Your citizenry are sick. Many people have untreated and undiagnosed mental disorders which interfere with rational cognition yet these people have no problem acquiring guns and ammunition and killing other people. These are criminals, and the law does not prevent them from accessing guns.

The classic republican design for guns is rooted not in lawful behavior but actually in mutually assured destruction. Republicans would quite enjoy it if every person was armed, because then the notion of gun violence, in the republican way of thinking, would evaporate. This design may work and I admit there may be something to it worth at least thinking about, but there is one problem to this design. Some citizens are mentally ill. Would you hand a mentally ill person a weapon and expect them to rationally consider mutually assured destruction? What if they are plagued by voices or have rage control problems? What does the republican model say in that situation? It devolves into a mexican standoff, moments before a blood bath. The Republican Party has a choice. You can go either way forward from the fork of gun control or addressing the mental health crisis in America. You can’t have it both ways. Either everyone gets guns and the mentally ill are cared for or there are strict gun controls and the mentally ill are left as they are.

So, Senator Schuitmaker, as a concerned voter in Kalamazoo I ask that you please reconsider this position. You can think of any part of your constituency when you make these decisions. The potential victims, men, women, and children and the various mentally ill people who mingle amongst us. We don’t ask for gun bans, but we do ask for gun regulations and I am willing to trade damaging the economics of gun manufacturers in this state so that we do not have to endure any more headlines about a field of dead children.