People shouldn’t be fooled on Question 3. It is a thinly disguised back door to compulsory firearm registration. There are literally tens of thousands of privately owned firearms in the state of Maine, and every single one of them will have to be carried to the police station to be entered into a computer database in order to implement Question 3 if it becomes law.

Otherwise, how would law enforcement officers know who owns which gun? And how would they know if a particular gun had been illegally transferred?

They wouldn’t.

So total statewide registration of all guns would be an absolute necessity. After a reasonable registration period of, say, three months, any gun still unregistered would be considered illegal contraband and it would be a criminal offense to possess such a gun.

Plus, in order to carry any type of legal gun outside a person’s home for any reason, that person would have to purchase and carry a photo ID license, listing that gun’s serial number to identify that person as the legal owner of said gun. Duh?

And all that is just the beginning.

Question 3 is the first step to confiscation of all privately owned handguns. Gun registration will tell the confiscators which house to search.

Question 3 is a trial balloon. If proponents can pass it here in Maine, they’ll move on to the rest of the country — and the rest of everyone’s guns.

I will protect my freedom and vote no on Question 3.

Paul Smith, Buckfield