Dear Editor:
Legislator Giancarlo Llaverias’ bogus claims of racism against the citizen who wished to exercise their specifically enumerated civil right to carry a gun for personal protection in Poughkeepsie demands a response.
It is perfectly understandable that people, including “the black and brown community”, would want to carry guns for self-defense given the high-profile murder of a Marist student’s father at the Courtyard Marriott.
Real discrimination and racism can be found in Attorney General Letitia James’ defense of Governor Hochul’s new gun control law. In her court filing she tries to justify it by citing historical bans on gun ownership by Native Americans and Catholics, “From the early days of English settlement in America, the colonies sought to prevent Native American tribes from acquiring firearms, passing laws forbidding the sale and trading of arms to Indigenous people … [E]ven after the English Bill of Rights established a right of the people to arm themselves, the right was only given to Protestants, based on a continued belief that Catholics were likely to engage in conduct that would harm themselves or others and upset the peace …”
If Legislator Llaverias and the Democrat caucus were genuinely concerned about bigotry and racism they would publicly condemn Attorney General James.
Respectfully,
Jacob Rieper
Pine Plains, NY
The opinions expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Mid-Hudson News.
