YOU CAN HAVE MY GUN WHEN YOU CAN PRY IT WITH YOUR COLD DEAD HANDS

From the May 7 Portland Press Herald in Maine:

The Attorney General's Office is deciding whether to launch a formal investigation into three pieces of hate mail sent to Sen. Ethan Strimling, D-Portland, at the State House....

The unsigned mailings contain derogatory references to Jews and chastise Strimling, whose father is Jewish, for supporting gay rights and for proposing a crackdown on assault weapons.

...One postcard purports to be from the "No Warning Headshot Photo Lab for Freedom" in Portland. The other postcard says it is from the "Rural Maine White Power Movement" in Naples. The third mailing, a flier, had no return address....

A little more detail in a follow-up from yesterday's edition of the paper:

The postcard from the "No Warning Headshot Photo Lab for Freedom" not only called him a "treasonous Jew," he said, but it also ended with the words, "Triangulation squad at hearing on Monday 10 a.m. In your face debate, traitor."

(I don't think that's "triangulation" as a political strategy -- I think it's "triangulation" as a mechanism for locating a target.)

Strimling isn't the only Maine legislator to face this sort of thing. According to the follow-up story, another is Margaret Craven of Lewiston:

It wasn't long after she submitted a bill last January calling for a 10-day waiting period on firearms sales to anyone younger than 22, Craven said, that she began getting cryptic calls and e-mails telling her, "You're going to be sorry you did this."

Granted, that could mean her bill, which by Tuesday had been watered down almost beyond recognition, could cost Craven re-election. Or it could mean something else.

"I grew up in Ireland, where you get very sensitive to threats and anything involving weapons," said Craven. When the first threats began showing up on her phone machine and computer last winter, she said, "I became very concerned. I remember thinking, 'Gee, I even have these legislative plates on my car ...' "

Some fine folks at the keepandbeararms.com bulletin board read this and have a few choice comments:

Good. The government is supposed to be scared of the people.

*****

As p*ssed off as most of the gun owners I know are, I am surprised that the shooting didn't start a long time ago.

*****

You had a legislator purportedly scared about even having license tags on her car identifying her as a legislator. This is what should happen when the tyrants move to restrict liberty. ... Arms are our liberty teeth. It's time to start threatening to bite.

*****

It's one minute to midnight for the anti-gun crowd and those who would take away our 2nd Amendment protection of our Right to keep and beat arms. On which side will you be when the shooting starts?

Charming.