I am writing to alert my fellow Mariposans to something going on at the state level that should be far more frightening to you than the so called "energy crisis." We must remember our legislators have a tendency to use such media hogging items to conceal their dirty legislation.

SB52 and AB35 will require you to be fingerprinted, pay an unlimited fee, pass a written firearms law test, pass a shooting proficiency test, pass a hand gun handling demonstration exam, require notification of address change (just like a registered sex offender), pay fees that begin in the $40 to $50 range going as high as $100 or more, and comply with various loaning and transferring laws in order to own a handgun.

And what if you do not pass these tests?

I am the paternal grandmother of the two children brutally stabbed to death with a pitchfork inside their rural Merced home on Aug. 23, 2000.

Although there were sufficient guns in the house for my granddaughters to defend themselves and their siblings, because of my son's willingness to comply with California State law, two of his children are dead. (Had the girls been able to get to the gun, by California law, my son would have been charged with a felony).

If it had not been for my nine-year-old granddaughter's willingness to sacrifice her life for her siblings, four of them would be dead. The man who killed them was a stranger to the family and though not on drugs at the time, was a known drug abuser. He had recently been arrested for assaulting a police officer and was on parole because of jail overcrowding. (Yet they would have room for me should I fail my test and refuse to give them my gun.)

The killer had already violated his parole. The police knew his address. They knew where his mother and grandmother lived. He had mental records. His wife had reported that he had kidnapped her and held her at gunpoint in 1997. She had more recently reported he left threatening messages on her answering machine. Yet my son would have been in more trouble had his 14 or 13 year-old daughters been able to get to his gun. How safe will we be against these predators if they know we are not armed?

Please think about it, and call your legislators today.

Mary Carpenter

North Carolina General Assembly

To Whom It May Concern,

To my understanding you are debating the passage of laws requiring trigger locks and mandatory storage of guns. I am a second generation resident of the State of California, a mother and a grieving grandmother.  I wish to express to you how trigger locks and mandatory storage laws in the State of California affected my family.  I hope my testimony may save someone in our state from sharing the pain we must now endure for the remainder of our lives.  No law you can pass will keep the irresponsible from shooting accidents or a felon from stealing a gun.  I am enclosing a portion of a letter I wrote to my own state legislators concerning the constant progression of laws restricting our guns in my state.

Depending on whether or not you truly care, you may or may not recognize my name.  I am the paternal grandmother of the two children who were brutally murdered inside their rural Merced California home on August 23, 2000 by a stranger with a pitchfork.

Instead of suing gun manufacturers, I am of the opinion it is our lawmakers who need to be sued.  It was you who created the laws that kept my grandchildren from being able to defend themselves with any weapon greater than their bare hands.  All of my son's children had been trained in the use of firearms but were unable to get to their Dad's weapon because of California State Law.

You, who have CCW permits or armed bodyguards, or both expect me to face a society gone mad because of drug-altered brains and lax laws on the perpetrators of crime?  You had no room in your prisons for the killer of my grandchildren though his wife had reported to the police in Mojave California, in June of 1997, that he had forced her and their infant son into his car (kidnapping), while living in southern California?  At that time she also reported how she had managed to escape from him in Mojave after he held a gun to her head (assault with a deadly weapon) threatening to kill her and their one-month-old child?  Though more recently she had given to the Dos Palos California Police Dept. the tape from her message minder, threatening to kill her present husband? Though he had assaulted a police officer while resisting arrest for drug charges?  Though he had violated his parole by not appearing at his hearing and they had a warrant out for his arrest?  Though they knew where he lived, and also his mother and grandmother, yet failed to pick him up?  Will you then find room for my son in your prisons should his fourteen-year-old daughter have access to his gun while she is babysitting her siblings?

There is a growing list, in my area alone, of people (mostly women) who might still be alive had they not been in a state where the use of a gun was prohibited.  Juli Sund, Carole Sund, Selvina Pelosso, Joie Armstrong, Ashley and John William Carpenter to name a few.  Lawmakers talk big about a woman's right to choose yet don't allow me the very basic right to choose to defend myself?  If teachers were allowed to carry a concealed weapon to school you would see the school shootings disappear.  The same is true with the citizen on the street.  The reason is, these killers are cowards.  You can tell by their choice of victims.  They operate best where they know there are no guns.

Look at your child tonight and imagine him or her with their eyes jabbed out, their skulls splintered, their brains pierced, and their spines broken with the heavy tines of a spading fork.  In defending her sisters to the death with the only weapon you allowed her, Ashley had 138-puncture wounds.  Twenty-nine of them were on the right side of her face, five on the back of her head, and thirty-seven to her chest and lower neck. (Obviously he was trying to behead her.) She was nine years old.  While committing no crime greater than sleeping in his parents bed, in his own house, John William, 7 years old, was stabbed 46 times, with most of them in the chest, neck, and head. Depending on the condition of your heart, you may or may not feel a small measure of the pain my family and I must endure for the remainder of our lives.

Now, imagine all the gun laws you can dream up and honestly admit whether or not they would have stopped such a mad dog as this.  This man was a total stranger to the family, and other than a trace of marijuana, was not on drugs at the time.  However, by the testimony of his wife and girlfriend, he was a drug user who became frightening whenever he used them.  All your imagined gun laws will do is insure someone's children will die again.

Take a drive downtown and see for yourself all the drug addled brains.  You may declare gun free zones, but you cannot declare killer free zones.  This tragedy has made me realize I am not even safe in my locked home, my barn, or my backyard.

I dare you to request the autopsy reports of John William & Ashley Danielle Carpenter done on August 28, 2000, from Sheriff Tom Sawyer of the Merced County Sheriffs Dept.  Also ask him for the police interview with the killer's wife and girlfriend telling about his drug use and devil worship.  Ask Detective Parsley about his fetish for horror movies produced by a John Carpenter, (no relation to us), and one he especially liked, that we have learned depicts a killing done with a pitchfork.  His last employment was as a telemarketer in Merced.
 
If you have an honest bone in your body you will see this country is in desperate need of a change of heart not the gun laws that have been in place for over two hundred years.  All the gun laws you can imagine cannot change the heart of a killer and you know it.  Until man's heart is changed, we will be like sheep led to the slaughter without our weapons of defense.

May you stand before God and man as my two precious grandchildren's killer if you pass any more gun legislation that will make me a felon should I own a handgun or any other gun for that matter.

Sincerely, Mary Carpenter