The headline read "Seattle gun owners boot gun-ban mayor." Two-term Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels lost his bid for a third term when he was defeated in the August primary by two upstart candidates. Nickels was a member of Mayor Bloomberg's anti-gun group Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

While the name of this organization seems harmless enough, its real agenda is not, and all you have to do is look at the group's leader. Bloomberg has long been a mayor who wants to restrict gun ownership. Goshen's Mayor Kauffman is also a member of MAIG and claims the group's purpose is keeping illegal guns out of the hands of criminals and removing illegal guns from the streets. That is just a smokescreen set up by this organization to hide its real agenda.

Check out the NRA Web site http://www.nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?id=255&issue=011 and you will understand what the real purpose of this group is.

Four of the 10 Indiana mayors who originally signed on to this group have resigned. I contacted these mayors and the consensus was that they were misled by the mission of the group and in one case, the mayor was a retired police officer and didn't know how his name got on the list.

I think Mayor Kauffman needs to understand that going after legal gun owners will not serve him well if he plans to run for re-election in 2011.

Going after illegal guns, per se, is an admirable cause. Now how about going after the illegal aliens in our community?

BOB SCHRAMEYER

Goshen