Letters to the editor for Saturday, June 18, 2016

Orlando gun store owner complied with law

“Orlando gun store owner denies Muslim American his constitutional rights.”

Had the owner of the Florida gun store that sold the guns used by Omar Mateen refused to complete the sale after the FBI background check allowed the purchase, that headline would have been splashed across the Internet, made the front pages of local and national papers, and been the subject of numerous discussions and analyses from GMA and The Five to the nightly news. CAIR would have picketed his store; Obama, Hillary and Bernie would have issued statements of support and condemned his insensitivity and prejudice when an American citizen, born in New York of immigrant parents who came here for a better life than war-torn Afghanistan, was denied his Second Amendment rights.

The shop would have been driven out of business. Instead, the store complied with federal and state regulations, treated the man as any other customer, and a registered Democrat, ISIS-loving son of a Taliban-supporting father, gunned down more than 100 people at a nightclub. There was no way for a legitimate businessman not to be vilified, and become a target of hatred like the innocents in the nightclub.

Gary Collier

Gardnerville