David Trahan, executive director for the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine pens an article in the September 2018 edition of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine News, called, “Political Militancy No Way to Govern.” I applaud his words and his effort. However…

The article mostly focuses on the efforts of three Maine legislators who have chosen to target the Kittery Trading Post to force them to stop selling “assault-style” weapons and to raise the age to 21 to be able to purchase what is called a “long gun.”

Of these three legislators and others nationally, Trahan writes: “For many reasons these Legislators, and others at the national level, like Maxine Waters, have stepped over a serious ethical line. As a past State Senator and Representative, I understand elected Legislators have exceptional power to change laws that could negatively impact a business or organization they don’t agree with – like Kittery Trading Post.

“When three Maine lawmakers and their followers decided to target one company, instead of introducing a policy change through legislation (a Legislator’s job) that would have rightly affected all similar Maine companies, they become “political militants”, not policy makers.”

Let’s turn the clock back just a wee bit shall we?

Last year Maine passed LD 557, a law that inequitably targets hunters and fishermen if they are caught destroying property. No other group or individuals are included in this doling out of unjustifiable increased punishment. I believe the correct terminology that represents such unlawful targeting of one group or individual over another is “unconstitutional animus.”

The Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine was a major promoter of this law which makes little sense when you consider the words of David Trahan against the three Maine legislators who he feels have “crossed a serious ethical line” by targeting Kittery Trading Post.

Perhaps Trahan, the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, and the Maine Legislature went further in the destruction of due process than the three Maine legislators targeting Kittery Trading Post. What the three legislators did may have crossed a perceived ethical boundary, what Maine and the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine did was, in my opinion, a direct violation of individual rights and that of due process.

Simply taking the action of “policy change” have never guaranteed that passed laws are not in violation of a person’s rights. Such is the case involving LD 557.

My call is to the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to seek to repeal LD 557, especially in view of the facts of the statement made in the article written by the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine.

Passage of and the promotion of LD 557 was nothing more than just another form of political militancy, which we have read is “no way to govern.” SAM should practice what they preach.