Gun Owners of Maine responds to Senator Angus King's GOSAFE Act proposal:

Senator Angus King’s GOSAFE Act proposal is not only misguided but dangerous.

Instead of focusing on curbing violence perpetrated by individuals with mental health problems, he is seeking to infringe not only on law-abiding citizens but on the future manufacture of firearms by “mandating that future gas-operated designs are approved before manufacture”. This would set a dangerous precedent for the government to further dictate how United States citizens defend themselves and the Orwellian undertones are unsettling.

Senator King’s proposal would make tens of millions of firearms that have already been deemed legal to own by the Supreme Court, illegal. By putting forth “feel good” legislation that on the surface might sound like a solution to violence, when in reality the proposal: further limits what kind of firearms are legal; makes arbitrary magazine capacity limits; requires legal gun owners to return their legally purchased firearms to the government knowing full well any criminals will not do so, leaving the law-abiding defenseless; Senator King is complicit in treading all over the United States Constitution.

Gun Owners of Maine opposes all legislation that removes the right to bear arms from law-abiding citizens. We maintain that evil lies in the hearts of men, not in inanimate objects, regardless of their capacity or firing mechanism. We look forward to the day when our Representatives in Congress are willing to sit down and have a serious discussion about how to address the mental health crisis that is taking place in our state and country instead of putting forth legislation that only harms the law-abiding.