To the Journal editor:

I would like to thank Marquette County Board of Commissioners, Sheriff Greg Zyburt, and Prosecuting Attorney Matt Wiese for not supporting the recently proposed resolution to declare Marquette County a “Second Amendment Sanctuary County.”

Though the commissioners, Zyburt, and Wiese are all intelligent, dedicated public servants and, I imagine, would never have supported a resolution to ignore state or federal gun control laws, I nonetheless commend them for not caving to political pressure from activists who hold fringe viewpoints.

I am a veteran of the U.S. Army Special Forces and a supporter of the Second Amendment, but I also support sensible gun control legislation that keeps our families safe.

Study after study has shown that gun control laws save lives-and these laws in no way infringe upon a citizen’s reasonable right to own a rifle for hunting deer or a shotgun to protect their home.

Yet John Kovarik and other right-wing activists want our county officials to ignore proposed gun control legislation to allow a threatening or mentally unstable person to own an AR-15.

I am not a constitutional scholar and will not attempt to interpret the second amendment, but I think that any rational citizen would agree that while we have broad freedoms under the U.S. Constitution, the government is still able to reasonably constrain those rights to protect other citizens.

You have the right to freedom of speech, but you do not have the right to tell someone to kill another person. You have the right to freedom of religion, but you do not have a right to practice a religion of human sacrifice.

So it should stand that you have the right to own a gun, but if it can be proven that you intend to hurt someone or that you are mentally unstable, that right will be constrained for the protection of others.

We are a nation of laws. We are also a nation of resolute public officials and I again thank those of Marquette County for honoring and upholding the laws of our state and nation.

SAM HOLCOMB

Marquette