There are two issues that stand out in the race for Michigan state representative in my district (59) between Mike Moroz and Aaron Miller.

Mr. Miller proposes that an individual should be able to purchase and carry a handgun hidden on his person without any background check or permit. Mr. Moroz will leave the laws as they are now enforced.

Mr. Miller’s proposal is indeed frightening. We are immersed in gun violence especially among the young. Mr. Miller’s Tea Party supporters I talked with believe that if everyone carried a concealed gun we would all be able to draw our weapon in time to shoot a perpetrator before he or she could shoot the innocent.

I can envision a scenario in a crowded mall during Christmas shopping when a disgruntled employee starts shooting and an upright citizen draws his gun firing in the direction of the unhappy employee. But a third gun toter, unable to see what the second shooter is aiming at thinks he is the bad guy and shoots him. Or in a traffic jam, two belligerents decide they will shoot it out.

And this is not to mention the deranged, mentally challenged, those who are intent on committing bank robbery having ready access to weapons, or gangsters from other states loading up for mayhem back home. I believe that I, and the people in my community, should be free of the threat of gun violence and Mr. Miller’s proposal is an affront to that liberty.

The second issue is Mr. Miller’s stand on women’s rights. He proposes the government control what a woman can or cannot do with her body; namely by denying the option of ending a pregnancy. Nobody is for abortion, but there are circumstances when a woman must decide and the state should never be allowed to intervene.

If the state should be allowed to dictate a woman’s health concerns, as our Tea Party friends insist, what would prevent the government from deciding there are too many people and demand that woman have abortions, such as the Communist Party in China did with the “one child” per family policy? The shoe would be on the other foot.

I will vote for Mike Moroz, clearly the more rational choice, on Nov 4.

 

Michael Slaski 

Cassopolis