I present for yourconsideration Sportsmen for Obama?The next presidential election will be especially important in case the Democratsretain control of the House and Senate.
In a surprise move, the US House of Representatives today passed a bill which provides incentives for states to enhance and computerize criminal and mental health records and make such records available to the FBI's National Instant Check System (NICS).
While The Firearms Coalition has consistently opposed previous versions of this bill, we do not oppose the bill as it was passed by the House today.
H.R.2640, sponsored by New York Democrat Carolyn McCarthy, is a modified version of a bill Rep. McCarthy has offered in each of the past several sessions of Congress. This version of the bill was just introduced this past Monday (June 11) and differs from previous versions in that it includes several provisions for the removal of names arbitrarily added to the NICS list and to ensure ways for a person who is on the list to regain their rights. These provisions were negotiated by the NRA over the past several weeks.
This bill is Congress' response to the murders of 32 students at Virginia Tech last month and was fast-tracked straight to the House floor, bypassing the normal committee process - and public scrutiny.
The Senate is expected to deviate from their traditional, drawn out deliberative process and vote on the bill in the next few days. It is clear that the skids are greased and I would be very surprised if the Senate doesn't pass this bill and send it up to the President for his guaranteed signature.
There has been much argument within the gun-rights community about this bill, NRA's support for past versions, and their participation in reaching a passable "compromise." Much of the opposition seems to be more concerned with the idea of dealing with long-time enemies than with the actual impact the bill will have.
The Firearms Coalition has opposed passage of McCarthy's previous "NICS Improvement" bills because we are opposed to the entire concept of the NICS program, oppose throwing another Billion dollars at this expensive placebo with little, if any, impact on crime, and we were concerned about language which would snare more individuals into prohibited status. We were critical of NRA and NSSF for supporting the bills and critical of GOA for over-hyping the potential negative impacts of the bills.
With the negotiated language of the new bill, reduced negative impact, and inclusion of some very specific, positive improvements to the NICS system, we feel that, though it is still a large-scale waste of taxpayer money, this is not a gun control bill and the good in this bill outweighs the bad.
We would like to have seen implementation of the financial incentives included in this bill predicated on a thorough study of the efficacy of NICS in reducing crime and a thorough cost/benefit analysis, but the window for such a requirement has likely closed.
There has never been a serious study to determine what - if any - impact the multi-Billion dollar NICS program has had on violent crime and criminal misuse of firearms. Instead, every evaluation of NICS has been based on the number of transactions and denials the system processes and how quickly they do their job. Stopping sales does not necessarily equate to reducing crime and it is well past time for the Government Accounting Office and the Justice Department to examine the true value of this expensive intrusion on civil rights.
Since NICS already exists, this bill contains no new or expanded restrictions on firearms ownership, and there is little likelihood of gaining the included, much needed reforms in any other way, therefore it is prudent and responsible to accept this bill as it is written.
Until NICS is completely repealed, it makes sense to take real improvements when we can get them.
As always, we will keep you posted as the - probably brief - debate over this bill plays out.
Yours for the Second Amendment,
Jeff Knox Director of Operations The Firearms Coalition _______________________________________________
This is the Firearms Coalition Alerts list. It is never sent without a subscriptionand confirmation. Write Comment (0 Comments)
The Bar is Being Lowered It's up to you to hold it up!
Take action now. Write to your Governor and the Attorney General and then write to your Senators and Representative. Forward this alert to every gun rights activist and organization you know then send it on to veterans and veterans' organizations because they are among the most severely impacted. The national gun and veterans' organizations and most of the state groups have either completely missed or conceded this issue. Only your immediate action can stop the momentum of this steamroller.
I would have written a shorter letter, but I didn't have time.
As we warned in the last FC-Alert, the standard for revoking gun rights is being lowered by Governors and Attorneys General around the country.
Over the past few months activists have been arguing about NRA support for, and GOA opposition to, Carolyn McCarthy’s bill to throw another Billion Dollars at the NICS “Instant Check” system and require more mental health and domestic violence reporting from the states. This is the fourth or fifth year in a row that McCarthy has introduced this exact bill and each time, NRA has quietly supported it while GOA has noisily opposed it. The Virginia Tech murders simply drew more attention to the argument this year, raising activists' ire.
While activists have been thus diverted, ATF has been actively lobbying Attorneys General and Governors to repeal the gun rights of millions of Americans. Anyone who has ever needed help dealing with depression, drug or alcohol issues, post traumatic stress disorder, or other mental problems is at risk of retroactively losing their right to own a firearm FOREVER!
The Gun Control Act of 1968 says that anyone "adjudicated mentally defective" may not own a gun. GCA '68 broadly defines this to mean anyone "involuntarily committed" by a court or other legal authority. The word "committed" has heretofore been interpreted to mean "institutionalized" - locked up in a facility with barred windows, padded walls, and Nurse Ratched. But after the murders at Virginia Tech, ATF is saying that anyone ordered by a court or other authority to participate in any mental health program should be included. That would include
Anyone who has been ordered to attend therapy sessions because the judge thought they were a suicide risk.
Anyone required to regularly visit a VA hospital for treatment because they came back from war with nightmares.
Anyone the VA says is not "competent" to manage their own benefits check.
Anyone who has been ordered by a judge to participate in a treatment program because they might be "a danger to themselves or others" (which is pretty much the only way a judge can order a person to get any medical treatment.)
It could include anyone ordered to participate in an “anger management” program or a dependency program after an alcohol related traffic ticket. Or a police officer who was ordered into a counseling program. (California Highway Patrol has a substantially higher suicide rate than any other police agency in the country and police have a higher suicide rate than the general public. Is the threat of losing their job and their right to own firearms likely to encourage them to seek help?)
All this because Cho Seung-Hui, the Virginia Tech murderer, had been ordered to participate in an outpatient mental health program, and that order did not meet the standard for prohibiting him from purchasing a firearm.
The next logical “loophole” is people who have been voluntarily committed. The government has a clear policy of “once crazy – always crazy” and provides no means for someone denied their gun rights for mental health reasons to ever regain those rights. Why, then would they stop at only those who are committed against their will? Who is crazier, someone who wants to go to the “funny farm” or someone who must be forced to go?
After that comes those treated for depression; since virtually all mass murderers in modern history were taking Prozac or some similar anti-depressant drug, how long can it be until ATF decides that anyone who has ever been prescribed an anti-depressant is “mentally defective" and should also retroactively lose their gun rights.
What's next? How long before the inclusion of anyone who has ever received outpatient treatment or counseling for depression? Therapy? Psychoanalysis? Marriage counseling?!?
The gun rights community seems to be standing aside as the government shreds an Enumerated Constitutional Right.
We must stand up and demand that they stop this abuse and unilateral expansion of their authority over law-abiding citizens.
Write to your Governor and your Attorney General today. Tell them that:
Mental health is much too complicated an issue to be painted with one broad brush. It is unconscionable that Constitutional Rights would be permanently denied for what are often brief periods of personal challenge.
ATF is trying to solve a rare and statistically insignificant (though potentially tragic) problem by asking you to declare millions of people as permanently and irreparably impaired.
By choosing to own a gun a citizen does not surrender protection from medical privacy laws.
Remind your attorney general and legislators that once a person’s name has been added to the federal NICS prohibited persons database for mental health reasons, it is virtually impossible for them to ever have their name removed. People who suffered from brief problems in their youth, but have lived normal, productive lives for years – including safe and lawful firearms ownership – would suddenly be stripped of their Constitutional Right to arms forever at the stroke of a key. Even violent felons have ways to regain their gun rights, but "mental defficients"do not.
Urge your attorney general and state legislators to place justice over a false sense of security. No one should have their name submitted to the NICS database unless they present a true, serious, and permanent threat to themselves and the public. The standard ATF is calling for to judge that threat is over-broad and intentionally vague. Urge them to refuse to lower the standards of your state to such a simplistic and unjust level.
Take action now. Write to your Governor and the Attorney General and then write to your Senators and Representative. Forward this alert to every gun rights activist and organization you know then send it on to veterans and veterans' organizations because they are among the most severely impacted. The national gun and veterans' organizations and most of the state groups have either completely missed or conceded this issue. Only your immediate action can stop the momentum of this steamroller.
Rights are not reserved only for those who have unblemished health records. The whole reason we have a republic rather than a true democracy is that democracy tends to trample the rights of minorities. Elected representatives are supposed to be above the mob mentality that can grip a population and intervene when government oversteps its authority. It is up to you and me to make noise for the minority until our representatives take appropriate action.
*********************
A new Hard Corps Report will be in the mail soon. If you are not a subscribing member of The Firearms Coalition yet, make a contribution today to be sure you don’t miss this timely issue of our notorious newsletter.
Contributions The Firearms Coalition can be made on-line through our web site www.FirearmsCoalition.org, on the phone at 703-753-0424, or by mail to: The Firearms Coalition, PO Box 3313, Manassas, VA 20108
Yours for the Second Amendment,
Jeff Jeff Knox Director of Operations The Firearms Coalition
_______________________________________________
This is the Firearms Coalition Alerts list. It is never sent without a subscription and confirmation. To unsubscribe, follow the link below. To change your address, unsubscribe your existing address and resubscribe from the new one.Write Comment (0 Comments)
It has been awhile. It's not that I have lost interest; it just became too time comsuming. Doing the daily report was impacting other responsibilities.
Then I have been dealing with a sick relative. She passed away on May 27.
So, I am just trying to recover my family and work lives.
While it's still important to get more information about what the process will be to return guns, there's no need to announce the news out of Kansas as a big threat.A town was wiped off the face of the earth. All but a handful of buildings were completely knocked down and destroyed. Unlike Katrina, homes weren't left standing and cops haven't gone door-to-door taking guns out of cabinets and safes.In the context of the type of damage a tornado does, all the latest reports from Kansas indicate that clean up crews are merely picking up guns they find in the debris, tagging them and turning them over for safe storage with full intent to return them to owners. One person from the area who called into NRA News Tuesday night noted that he was under the impression that authorities are even noting where they found them in case it belongs to that address or one nearby and they can make the return process easier. Obviously, getting the guns back to their rightful owners will be a process that they could use to cause problems. However, nothing in the NRA alert or any other reports that I've seen in the blogosphere or elsewhere indicates that they intend to cause problems for the owners. NRA merely wants people to know that if they've heard rumors, so has the organization and they are checking it out. They also want to keep an eye on it, though there's no obvious signs of it being any kind of problem.I hope you'll do your part to frame the news from Kansas in the full scope of the events and not contribute to alarm and panic that's simply not based on facts at this time.As a gun owner who grew up in tornado alley with witness to exactly what damage these storms can do, I know I would actually appreciate the authorities rounding up any of my guns that were blown away along with the rest of my house. Having guns - some possibly loaded - resting in the debris and on the streets where they are trying to focus on recovery could possibly be a dangerous situation. Not to mention, leaving your gun out in the open elements is not exactly in the best interest of keeping it in good condition. It all seems kosher and like appropriate measures. I admit, it would be more reassuring if the local recovery crews did some kind of press conference announcing exactly what their plans are in returning any found guns to their owners. However, please keep in mind that this town is gone. Every family lost a home. And as someone from a town as small as Greensburg, if 10 people suddenly died in one night, it would add to the trauma of every resident.Your post seemed a bit on the alarming side and I would hope that you consider posting a note that gives the full context in order to keep people from being alarmed. If you have more information that I don't that indicates the guns are being taken in more of a Katrina-style manner, please feel free to share.
Update: Just to be clear, I think Bitter is right. My time is in such short supply, I didn't investigate / explain enough. Thanks to Bitter for taking the time.
About Us | Copyright 2004-2008, Gun Law News Do not construe anything you read here to be legal advice. Consult your attorney for any advice you may require.
