Talk about shameless!
Anti-gun advocates will seemingly stoop to any tactic to try to get legislation passed to further restrict law-abiding gun owners. Gabby Giffords’ group, the so-called Americans for Responsible Solutions, recently proved that while in New Mexico.
Michelle Carlino-Webster, widow of Albuquerque Police Detective Dan Webster, recently wrote in the Albuquerque Journal that she was already offended that out-of-state interests—Michael Bloomberg, Giffords’ group and others—had poured a quarter-million dollars into the state in an attempt to pass restrictive background check legislation. But then, at the hearings for House Bill 50, things got very personal.
“The bill’s author, as well as her lead witness, both invoked the name of my late husband, Albuquerque Police Department officer Daniel Webster, to promote the measure,” Carlino-Webster wrote. “Along with the media, they continue to imply that had these proposed laws been in place, my husband’s death would have been prevented; in doing so, they actually remove accountability from the criminal who caused it.
“I am not okay with this, and I know Dan would not have wanted his name associated with this bill, either. He was against expanded background checks of any kind, and stood behind our Second Amendment rights with honor and appreciation.”
Carlino-Webster wrote that it is quite easy to see that out-of-state interests were trying to push a measure on New Mexico residents that they really didn’t want.
“Former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords’ recent visit to New Mexico to call for restrictive firearms legislation is further evidence that House Bill 50 and Senate Bill 48 are products of a national gun control agenda,” she wrote. “Her organization, Americans for Responsible Solutions, joins the chorus of outside groups led by billionaire New Yorker Michael Bloomberg pushing for burdensome regulations on the sale and temporary loaning of your personal firearms, even to people close to you, such as friends, neighbors, co-workers and even some family members.”
Yet she knows that her late husband would have opposed the measure, and would be appalled that his name was being used to try to gain support for it.
“These gun control bills do not represent Dan’s beliefs or New Mexico’s love of freedom and respect for our Constitution, which he defended on the streets of Albuquerque and as a decorated U.S. Army combat veteran,” she concluded. “This is not what he would have wanted for our state, because it would not make us any safer.”
Fortunately for New Mexico’s law-abiding gun owners, the measure was killed by the state legislature. But judging from past experience, don’t expect an apology from Giffords or her group anytime soon for dragging a slain hero into a debate over a proposal he would have strongly opposed.
Mark Chesnut has been the editor of America’s 1st Freedom magazine for nearly 17 years and is an avid hunter, shooter and political observer.
