Brian Anderson writing at Downtrend.com has a foreboding article about gun rights because of the implications of a purported new strategy emphasis by opponents of the Second Amendment. In short they may be shifting focus from bans on hardware to enhanced background checks and mental health checks. We find the specter of enhancements of both problematic — playgrounds for those ideologically opposed to citizen gun ownership. We have enough gun laws and enforcement mechanisms now limiting people and hardware. We do not need any more. Quoting Anderson:
It sounds like a great idea to most people, right? They want to make sure crazy people can’t get their hands on guns, or do they? What they are really talking about is a massive expansion of those people who would be banned from owning firearms . . .
As part of Colorado’s $20 million mental health firearms denial system, they’ve set up a “tip” line. Anonymous callers can turn in supposedly dangerous people. These tips give police enough cause to force that person into a psychiatric evaluation. Without due process or even a declaration of insanity, a person can lose his gun rights . . .
The most sinister aspect of this whole plan is that there is no mechanism for someone to regain his or her “sanity” in the eyes of the law. Once the government has you pegged as mentally ill, you remain so for the rest of your life.*
They’ve (gun control lobby) also probably figured out that with hundreds of millions of guns in private hands, those bans will do nothing anyways. But, if you could radically expand the list of people who cannot own firearms, confiscation and disarmament becomes quite easy and nobody’s going to make a fuss about it.
The likelihood of various “group” memberships, political or otherwise, being rated a blanket mental health designation in our system of government need not be argued in order to be concerned about individual rights. What we consider beyond dispute is how bureaucracies work and that the losing of one’s rights can happen with either a responsible or irresponsible stroke of a pen but getting them back is hugely expensive and cumbersome, likely to be met with walls of indifference at best.
Thanks to HP and RD for their recent forwards of related elements to this story.
R Mall
