A bipartisan agreement in Congress about gun violence focuses on keeping weapons out of the hands of mentally-ill persons. But who determines who’s on the no-buy list, and how?
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41 replies on “Gun Nuts: Can We Keep Weapons Out of the Hands of Crazy People? Who Decides Who’s Crazy?”
This was excellent! Thank you.
If there’s a job opening for who decides who is crazy, I’ll take that job! In fact, I’ve already started a list. So far, it includes every democrat in all levels of government.
The lovely and fabulous, red-headed, and Irish-ancestry Mrs. Jackson used to have a monthly “visitor” who stayed for a couple of days and made her crazy. I chose not to have a gun in the house. There was still frying pan and flying slipper violence, but I survived. Now that she is “not visited anymore”, we have loads of guns, even though she doesn’t like me using them; “Bears share our mountain, they were here first.”
I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t have trusted myself during ‘those years’ either!
man: He was a quiet boy. Always kept to himself.
reporter: Can you believe he shot Buckwheat?
man: OH Yeah! That’s all he ever talked about. Shootin’ Buckwheat.
Pardon the mild profanity, but “working” with todays Democrats is a classic case of: “Play ball with us, and we’ll shove the bat up your ass!” Wake up Republicans. Stick to our traditional values and respect the wording and intent the Founding Faathers placed in the Constitution.
Seems to me there’s an easy out for the Republicans who are getting themselves snared in this spiderweb of double meanings and hidden agendas.
They’re caught on the horns if an intentional political dilemma. This is by design, it is not accidental nor coincidental. Either they support “red flag laws” or they’re painted as taking the side of mass murdering animals.
I think the political key here is to give the Democrat Left what it wants and give it to ’em good and hard.
So if I’m a Republican lawmaker I’m going to take the stance that red flag laws may have their merits but … So does the right to the personal liberties and rights of ownership and privacy enumerated in our Constitution.
Therefor, as a law abiding, law respecting, duly elected representative of The People and a patriotic American I will vote for red flag laws that contain the following provisions —
Are there holes in that policy? Sure, big enough to drive a truck through but that’s not the point. The point is to open a dialog on what it means and takes to infringe on a person’s rights. If gay people, transvestites, drag queens and etc. can have special rights then there is no decency or morality in taking away the regular old run-of-the-mill rights of any individual citizen.
It’s a fairly easy case to make and this allows a right thinking Conservative to stand on the solid ground of the U.S. Constitution by not only insisting that we take dangerous maniacs with serious mental issues off the streets but that due process and individual rights are respected and applied all along the chain of doing so.
Because basically all this is, is a return to the mental health policies of bygone years. And that’s why the Democrat Left won’t go for it. But it gives a Republican a way to shrug off accusations of being in league with mass shooters and Satan himself while still insisting on due process.
When the topic of red flag laws comes up he can honestly say he’s all for them, as long as they’re done in accordance with our laws and traditions he’ll vote for them. Throw that hot potato back in the lap of the Left.
“The trigger for further action is that all three independent evaluations must agree.”
If at least 2 of the 3 do not agree that there is reason to think there may be a credible danger, the original accuser can be held liable.
I’d go for that addition.
I did say there are holes in the plan. Those holes would hopefully be plugged before any law was passed.
I think that it would be a good idea to hold the accuser financially and perhaps even criminally liable for making a spurious accusation. So, what you said and …
If only one or none of the 3 preliminary evaluations determine a lack of demonstrable threat then the accuser is criminally liable as well as liable for lawsuit.
If you make a spurious, baseless accusation that gets to the point of 3 independent evaluations you’re wasting time and taxpayer money as well as creating a serious headache for the accused. So don’t make the accusation unless you can back it up.
I realize that maybe I’m not being clear here so —
If at least two of the three agree you’re off the hook. While there may be the possibility of a threat, it is not concrete enough to proceed legally. If only one agrees then you can be sued. If none agree then you can be jailed.
I would also point out that at various points in the not too distant past, the following would have been considered red flags:
A man wearing women’s undergarments
A woman wearing pants
An unmarried man in his 30s
Lack of Religious Faith
Being too religious
Being Jewish
Homosexuality
Divorce
Being Irish
Drinking, at all
Gambling
you get the idea.
Yes, I do get the idea. I have no idea how to codify out social trends from a law like we’re talking about but …
I don’t think we’d really have to do that. The Left isn’t going for such a law under the parameters we discussed above. The more stringent, individual liberty oriented, and authority constraining in favor of Constitutional Rights the law proposed is — The less the Left will like it.
My point is more one of political strategy than it is a proposal for the framework of a law. Trying to be conversational I let Sam Orton distract me with a detail. It’s a good detail but that’s not my point.
If a Republican Congressman or Senator says “I’ll vote for a Red Flag Law like (described above) and anyone who wouldn’t do so is both for letting maniacs run loose to kill people and for hurting undeserving citizens with an unjust law.” Then that lawmaker can claim he’s doing everything he can to support a “sensible” Red Flag Law and it’s the Democrat Left that is blocking the process because they want to do dirty deeds to innocent people.
The Left won’t go for it no matter what because it castrates their real purpose. Which is to have an excuse to take guns away from people who haven’t done anything wrong, yet. It’s a wedge issue, if you can take a gun from someone who might be a school or workplace shooter, then maybe later you can take guns away from people who do anything else on the list you posted. Or any other “social sin” the Left decides you shouldn’t be indulging in.
We know this is so because the Left doesn’t care that more people are shot in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York on any given weekend than die all year of active shooter scenarios. They’re just using a massed group of sensational casualties as a political driver.
However, taking the position I described gives a Conservative a means to throw the issue back on them.
You know the “monkey on my back” allegory, I’m sure. The boss comes to a fellow employee and says “Do this XYZ thing.” The fellow employee has a monkey on his back. So he says “OK, but Ron SAE is much better and quicker at this kind of thing.” He’s trying to get the monkey off his back and put it on yours. So the boss comes to you and tells you to do the XYZ task. He’s moving the monkey from your co-worker to your back. You say “Sure, but if I do that I won’t have time to do ZYX the way it needs to be done and ZYX is a higher priority.” The boss really needs ZYX done as quickly and as well as possible so he goes back to the original employee and tells him to do the XYZ task, shut up about it and just do it. The monkey returns to his back and stays there.
That’s what I’m proposing. A way to put this Red Flag Law monkey on the backs of the Left make it stay there because they deserve it. Let the monkey eat them, not us, then starve to death.
Little bit of lost in writing vs speaking. I really wanted to point out that the “Karens” of the past would have had groups of people as clearly not sane enough to own scary guns, while today some of those same groups are being raised up by today’s “Karens” as preferred groups.
Though I agree that the process you laid out would be workable, and not remotely agreed upon by the leftist scolds.
Ah. Bandwidth issue. Roger that. I see your point now and agree. My apologies.
Mentally unstable people usually show themselves early. Children that hurt small animals…and enjoy it; those that are bullied; bad home environment where they don’t feel safe. It all boils down to power and not having any. Children who feel powerless see an advantage of having power, as they are the victims. Getting a gun gives them power and the moment they use it, they feel powerful. Power is more addictive than anything on this earth. Look at what is going on now. There are a lot of victims out there.
I think Scott got it wrong with regard to calling some criminals animals. We call them that not because we don’t want to associate with them, but because they don’t deserve to be associated with us.
I am assured from reliable sources, that Scott did not get it wrong. Sadly.
Well that really stinks. Thanks for the clarification.
I remember the “Minority Opinion”, in which three ‘special’ perons determined the fate of citizens. When one of the three did not agree with the other two, chaos broke out for an ‘inocent’ poloceman. I wonder who the current congressional membership would pick for the “special persons”.
You all made some good points. Scott, I pretty much ag wi everything you said except right towards the very end. In my view, anybody who murders someone is mentally ill.
Clarification. I said murder, not kill. Killing in self defense is eminently … sane.
My state has one of those so-called red flag laws. Recently, a gun-owner had his guns confiscated on an accusation. At his hearing, the judge found him safe. However, the state is insisting on his proving those guns were his by producing bills of sale. Some of his guns were inherited from his grandfather and father. Who would have proof from that? Don’t give the state the power to take the guns before any hearing! They’ll abuse the law any way they possibly can.
They probably think this is a case of asset forfeiture, but have no crime they can connect to the taking of the property. Might be one of those times to make the rubble bounce and hire a lawyer to sue the police chief for theft under the color of law and anything else that works.
Leftists have no “common sense,” and Leftists automatically classify DECENT people as “mentally deficient” people. The movie “Minority Report” describes the despicable world Leftists want to create.
Ironically, that movie got the eye tracking and advertising ID following you concepts down too.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Nothing in there about mental illness, or perceived mental illness.
What’s crazy is Republicans who wave a white flag on this issue in the name of “bipartisanship”. Notice that all of the Republicans involved in these negotiations are from the geezer generation that are used to all the anti-second amendment laws passed beginning with the GCA68. Their negotiating point was to reduce the amount of damage. They should have taken positions that, say, if the DemoKKKrats want to raise the age to purchase a semi-auto rifle to 21, then our position would be that, say, suppressor are removed from the NFA. The real problem we have in our country is the breakdown of the family. I’m old enough to remember when one could purchase a firearm through the Sears, Roebuck catalog. And we did not have the problems with mass shootings back then.
I remember students (mostly guys) coming to school twice a month with rifles, etc. to practice on the gun range behind the school after classes let out for the day. Many of us went to watch and admire the technique, knowledge and camaraderie.
I remember doing just that. My high school graduation class was 51. Small town America where students came from the surrounding farms and three small towns to one school. We also went out hunting after school, too.
Well spoken, gentlemen! Humans are individuals. We are all different with different ideas, passions, strengths and weaknesses. We have all seen people do things that we might consider a bit crazy; But we all have almost certainly done things ourselves that others might consider “crazy.”
As you stated, the real danger is not who is crazy or not, but who gets to decide who is crazy. This idea has been used many times to shut down political dissidents!
Yes, due process is extremely important on this issue. thanks gents for pointing this out and to keep pointing it out.
I firmly believe that if the GOP caves on this, the criterion for mental illness prohibiting gun purchases will be the desire to have a gun.
Additionally, thank you for pointing out that the adjective is not needed. We don’t need to have a conversation on gun violence, just violence.
We need to take back the language.
It does harken to a time when uncooperative wives were institutionalized and lobotomized. In China, speaking ill of the state is a mental illness requiring “treatment.” Can you imagine having a lifelong bureaucrat like Dr. Fauci deciding who is competent to own a gun and who is not?
Of course it’s tragic when a mass killing occurs — young, old, black, white — the demographic doesn’t matter. The politicians’ knee-jerk reaction is to focus on guns as the cause of the deaths.
But why aren’t they equally (if not more) adamant about the mass killing that happens every day in the US? According to the CDC, there were 629,898 abortions performed in 2019. That’s roughly 1,725 deaths of children per day. Every.single.day.
Don’t these children deserve the same consideration? Banning abortion would save more lives than banning guns.
I agree with you, Susan – but see, abortion is a “right” according to the murderers on the left, sacrosanct beyond criticism or laws to prevent it.
I don’t know who down-voted your comment, but I upvoted to cancel it. Wish I could upvote again.
It’s astounding that some see abortion as a “right”, though it’s nowhere in the constitution. Unlike the owning of guns, which IS in the constitution.
Well, actually the topic of abortion, which is otherwise known as murder, is contradicted in the preamble to the constitution where it states something like all have an unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It seems obvious to me that that negates any claims of a “right” to obtain an abortion.
In my opinion, if someone has been judged by professionals (not politicians, judges or juries but psychiatrists) to be violently insane, they should not have guns, and probably be put into an institution. But if made, a red flag law is include the following “if person accused is found able to have guns, the person trying to remove the right to keep and bear arms from another, shall be put in prison for the same amount of days that the person denied their rights was without those rights.”
in other words, if my neighbor accused me, and I lost my rights to a gun for ten days that person shall be in prison for ten days if I was found not violently insane.
What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
That’ll never pass, but it would lessen the “He has a gun, so he must be crazy!’ reports.
And we still would not catch all the crazies.
By the same logic with which you began, anyone who is flagged insane should have access to nothing. No hammers. No cars. No knives. No rocks. No rope. No neckties. Well, the list goes on and on and on….
Basically, we’re talking about no life.
Notice i said violently insane. As yes, those should be locked way, never to have access to anything that can harm people.
The problem is the definition of “professional.” Our society has been locked down for two years based upon the whims of so-called “professionals.” A more effective deterrent to the recent bouts of violence is an armed citizenry.
This is the best show from Scott that I can recall. I usually wind up slightly irritated with his shows for several reasons. This time he really nails the issue. It is about liberty and due process. If you think person X is mentally ill and should not possess firearms, get civil commitment process started. Title 18 U.S.C. 922(c) makes it unlawful for a person who “has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution;” Having people who think you are crazy is insufficient. You must get a judge to decide based upon evidence at a hearing where you get to confront witness against you, have a lawyer and call your own witnesses. This is the due process the constitution requires. The Fourth Amendment requires the same due process before the government can seize your property. This is not hard to understand, unless you are a legislator.
Since people aren’t born crazy, we can state that people become crazy.
There’s a reason that the term “Temporary Insanity” exists. People can, temporarily, be out of their right mind.
These facts make it quite clear that until they have technology that can constantly evaluate an individual’s state of mind, there is, quite literally, no way to stop violence (gun based or otherwise) based on mental health. This means that the idea of limiting firearms to mentally healthy people is, on the political spectrum, a unicorn. It is a fiction based pipe dream.