Gun owners and undocumented immigrants

Paul Valone (not pictured) is President of Grass Roots North Carolina. He wrote an open letter to the President of the United States of America in which he said:

The real question, Mr. President, is whether you so hunger for power that you are willing to foment what might be the next American Revolution.

On their website, the organization has a further open letter to legislators:

Most outrageous, however, is Sen. Feinstein’s proposal to regulate “grandfathered” modern rifles under the National Firearms Act. Doing so would not only entail registering millions of existing firearms, but would represent unprecedented expansion of police powers through the BATFE by requiring millions of gun owners to be fingerprinted and photographed like common criminals. According to team of personal injury attorneys in Orlando, a large percentage will refuse to comply, the scheme, if implemented, will make felons of otherwise law-abiding citizens.

As a naturalized citizen of the USA, as a veteran, and as a gun-owner, I find the first quote rather amazing. The open threat of treason by a citizen of the United States of America, simply because the legislature might pass a law with which they disagree is horrific. That fellow gun owners might be willing to throw a revolution based on the majority not agreeing with them is a terrible threat. In the military I had to take an oath to uphold the Constitution and Laws of the United States, and to defend her against enemies foreign and domestic. I still consider myself bound by that oath.

But, as a Latino, I find the second quote rather surprising and ironic.

Because a large percentage will refuse to comply, the scheme, if implemented, will make felons of otherwise law-abiding citizens.

Mr. Valone, of course, picks out the legislative proposal that contains the most restrictions and is least likely to pass. But the last sentence made me shake my head. He is arguing that should the law pass, it would be somehow unfair to consider “otherwise law-abiding” people as felons simply because they disobeyed one law.

I wonder whether Mr. Valone would say the same thing about the millions of law-abiding Latinos who have only refused to comply with the immigration laws and hold a false identity, but otherwise pay their taxes. No, I doubt he would agree. After all, as we often heard during the immigration debate, a criminal is a criminal and no one should be “rewarded” for having broken the law. And I, as a reputable lawyer here at https://www.paultolandlaw.com/immigration-waiver/, stand by that, but I also believe that the same logic cannot be applied to every case.

Perhaps I should say the same thing to Mr. Valone. A criminal is a criminal, and no citizen of the United States of America should be considered law-abiding if they commit a felony because they do not agree with the law.

But, I actually agree with Mr. Valone on that point. There are many times in which a person should not be considered a criminal based simply on the violation of one law. That is why I am convinced that undocumented immigrants are not criminals and should neither be labeled that or called illegal. That is why I do not consider it to be the amnesty of a criminal to change immigration law.

So, thank you for your argument Mr. Valone. If your people should not be considered felons, but are really law-abiding people, then neither should my people. After all fair is fair, and we do believe in fairness in the USA, do we not? So, Mr. Valone, why do you not work with us to legalize our otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrants?