Archive for the 'Guns' Category

The Washington Times:

Gun-control and gun-rights advocates are locked in a fierce dispute over what rank-and-file National Rifle Association members and average gun owners think about President Obama’s gun-control proposals, with the NRA sharply rebutting numbers purporting to show that its members and gun owners are largely receptive to new laws.

According to polling conducted by the gun-control advocacy group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, whose co-chairman is New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, 74 percent of NRA members support requiring a criminal background check on anyone purchasing a gun.

But the NRA says that is not the case.

“Mayor Bloomberg’s claims that gun owners are divided are totally false,” said Chris Cox, the group’s chief lobbyist. “It is nothing more than an attempt by anti-gun activists to further their long-standing political agenda.”

In response to such figures, the NRA recently released its own survey — touting it as “the only legitimate survey of NRA members in existence.” The gun-rights group noted that the mayors’ group and other recent surveys did not have access to NRA membership rolls and thus their polls could not reliably sample its membership.

The poll of 1,000 NRA members shows that 89 percent oppose a ban on military-style, semi-automatic weapons and 92 percent oppose a ban on magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition. The group says the numbers prove that members are “united in their desire for Washington to focus on keeping firearms from the mentally ill and to reject unconstitutional gun control measures that infringe on Second Amendment rights.”

But Sen. Christopher Murphy, Connecticut Democrat, said gun owners and NRA members generally agree that strengthening background checks is a good idea …

“The NRA and its lobby — especially when it comes to the debate we’re having right now in Washington — is badly out of step with the people that the NRA claims to represent,” Mr. Murphy said on a conference call Monday.

The polls showing that NRA members want universal background checks are lies.  All of them.  They are fabricated by gun-grabbers who have no problem coloring the truth, making up things or saying things they know to be outright lies.

However, Chris is trying to persuade his buddies to come join him in his quest for totalitarianism.

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy is trying to convince his former colleagues in the House and his new colleagues in the Senate that there won’t be any retribution from gun owners at the polls, if they do the right thing and vote in favor of common sense gun control legislation.

Chris is a naive simpleton if he believes that.  If he doesn’t, he is willing to throw his colleagues under the bus.  We gun owners never forget, and we do and will take retribution.

Be wise and cautious.  Don’t do things from which there is no return.

Crazy uncle Joe in his own words.

“You don’t need an AR-15, it’s harder to aim, it’s harder to use,” he stressed.

Biden indicated that he has given his own wife the same advice. “I said, ‘Jill, if there’s ever a problem, just walk out on the balcony here, put that double-barreled shotgun and fire two blasts outside the house,’” he said, and urged viewers, in closing, “Buy a shotgun, buy a shotgun!”

Right.  Hand a double-barrel (I assume, 12 gauge) shotgun to a potentially small frame woman, tell her to shoot both barrels into the air, wasting her shots and leaving her defenseless, and dispense with actually aiming a weapon.

My dumb-ass dog is smarter than him.  Seriously.  Folks, do … not … ever … take an approach like this in situations of threat to your person.  Ever.  There are so many things wrong with this it’s hard to know where to begin.  First of all, do not ever leave yourself no means of egress if you are under threat, and do not ever approach the person who is threatening you.  In Castle-doctrine states you don’t have to retreat in your own home, but that’s different than recommending that someone walk out of their home.

Second, the choice of weapons should be up to the shooter, but a 12 gauge shotgun has some kick, and she may not be able to handle it.  The 5.56 mm round has much less recoil, aided by the buffer spring in the AR which absorbs much of the recoil.  Finally, no self defense expert recommends warning shots.  In fact, forget self defense experts.  No serious person anywhere recommends warning shots.

Just please.  Seriously.  Do not ever do what he is recommending.  He’s just crazy uncle Joe being himself.

Believe it or not.

Manufacturers are looking into new sensor and biometric technology to restrict gun use to the owner.

They’re called smart guns. When placing a sensor ring on the gun, it shoots. Without it, it can’t.

It’s part of technology designed so only the authorized user can fire the weapon.
Another design uses biometric technology that recognizes your grip.

“One of the major designs is where it accepts either a fingerprint or a thumb print so it will release the firing pin or the trigger area so that it can fire, so if it doesn’t recognize it, it won’t allow the gun to fire,” says Santa Maria gun shop manager Joe Degeus.

Making it useless, if the gun were to fall into the hands of a child or a criminal.

“It is kind of like James Bond,” says Degeus. “But you got to remember, with technology comes the opportunity for more mistakes.”

Gun owners say it sounds good in theory but argue the technology is lacking.

“If that system jams up or if we have a problem with it, I’m in a bad situation,” says gun owner Joshua Miller. “Because the criminal that’s coming at me…he’s not going to have any limitations so his gun’s going to fire every time.”

Take it from a registered professional engineer.  You see that picture above with the solid state electronics inside the gun?  It is obscene.  Not only that, it’s stupid.

There are even old school shooters who don’t believe in such a thing as the grip safety (Beaver tail) on my XDm.  I am not among that crowd, but the notion that I would rely on a gun with solid state electronics for my own protection is absurd, leaving aside the problems I have with it being amenable to governmental control.

Every gun you have should be capable of personal defense.  Some guns (and cartridges) are better for concealment, some better for target shooting, some better for more sophisticated and formal competition such as 3-gun or IDPA, some are better for hunting, and some are best for personal defense.

But whether .17 HMR, 5.6 mm or .338, every gun you have should be at least minimally capable of use in some sort of defensive situation, even if not the best suited for that purpose.  This is true because you might be in a position where you have to pick it up and use it for that very purpose in a crisis.

Having solid state electronics as yet another failure mode in any of those guns is not an option for me, and I suspect, for 99% of all other shooters.  So here’s a note to manufacturers.  You go right ahead and “dabble” in smart gun technology.  I will purchase such a gun when hell freezes over.

Bob Owens discusses the fact that a growing number of companies are refusing to do business with New York and other states over unconstitutional gun laws.  More specifically, if a citizen cannot have a particular weapon, then law enforcement doesn’t get it either.

Mountain Guerrilla also weighs in with some direct contact e-mail addresses with the gun companies.  I also have some (one for Rock River Arms), and I intend to send notes around on this issue.

I have strongly advocated that Remington relocate to South Carolina (and that other firearms manufacturers relocate to different states, such as Kimber, Rock River Arms, Springfield Armory, etc.), and CBS News did a segment that showed that this kind of thing might be making a difference.

I realize that this is slightly off subject if we’re discussing manufacturers holding the states accountable for double standards, but this isn’t really that far off subject.  Most good people are hard workers, and I have put in my share of time for my company, including unpaid time.

But I once worked with a man whom I respect who held that this can and often does turn counterproductive in work, family and church.  The more we fill in the gaps for people, the less people feel the effects of their actions and decisions.  It keeps people from learning.  When we work hard to undo bad managerial decisions, management makes the same decisions again.  When we block consequences from our children, they don’t grow up.  I have begun to take my friend’s view in almost every walk of life.

When states abuse its citizens, they should lose business, respect and revenue.  States like New York, with its new assault weapons ban, and Illinois with the continued fight against even concealed carry anywhere in the state, don’t deserve the gun companies, and their states’ law enforcement agencies don’t deserve the best firearms.  Bad actions are needful of consequences in order to rectify those actions.

Furthermore, as I’ve pointed out before, the hypocrisy is just rich and a remarkable thing to behold.  States that ban weapons because they are “evil and inflict damage to innocent lives” but allow their manufacture because of revenue just aren’t worthy to be taken seriously.  This is happening in Colorado as we speak.

At Guns For Everyone, we learn that Colorado wants the ban Magpul’s magazines, but wants their money.

As Colorado state legislators debate HB 13-1224 – a bill that would ban magazines over 15 rounds – an issue arose around Magpul and its base of operations here in Colorado.

Magpul has vowed to leave the state if a magazine restriction is passed in any form.

To appease Magpul, and presumably to keep it’s reported 600 jobs and $85 million in taxable revenue in the state, Representative Joe Salazar announced an amendment to HB 13-1224, L.0.14, that would specifically exempt Magpul from this legislation in as far as they would still be welcome to manufacture and sell these black high capacity ammunition clip death machines to civilians, just not to Coloradans.

When House Republicans pointed out the obvious and blatant hypocrisy of this amendment, House Democrat Rhonda Fields insisted that the amendment was intended to allow Magpul to continue to sell these magazines to law enforcement and to the military because “the military protects the company…Country” (check the record, her slip of the tongue was real and darkly accurate).

This is a preposterous excuse for wanting Magpul to stay in Colorado and we know that she is lying.  Selling magazines to law enforcement and the military wouldn’t even come close to the business they do for the civilian market.

Kimber and Remington moving from New York, and Rock River Arms and Springfield Armory moving from Illinois, and Magpul moving from Colorado, is best for the citizens of those states, as well as the country as a whole, even if it causes pain for a while (or otherwise, if they don’t relocate, the laws need to be reversed as a precondition for their staying).  Likewise, firearms and ammunition companies shouldn’t be doing business with such states.  A principled stand like this also causes increased respect within the firearms community.  And we are a paying bunch of people.  We put our money where our mouth is.

UPDATE: Magpul is threatening to leave if the Colorado bill is passed into law.  I have sent e-mails to Rock River Arms, Smith and Wesson, Springfield Armory, Glock, Remington and Magpul about their positions regarding the state boycott.  I have yet to receive any responses.

Saturday was raw, cold and mixed frozen precipitation.  That didn’t matter, as the lines to get into the Metrolina Expo Center were long, approximately a three hour wait.  I saw cars from at least North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Texas and New Jersey.  I’ve been to this gun show for years and I’ve never seen it this crowded.

Feeling were rather raw along with the weather, and there were many angry comments in line about the administration and their enablers in the Congress and Senate.

By the time we all got inside (they were letting people go in at the same rate people were coming out), we all made a bee-line for the bathroom (coffee + three hours).  As a note to planners, it might pay to put a Porta-jon or two near the line.  It would make for less irate patrons.

Inside there were plenty of ARs for sale, other semi-automatics, plenty of pistols, revolvers, and shotguns (and one very nice Springfield Armory M1A Super Match for $2700).  Tactical shotguns were in shorter supply than anything else.  I did notice that there is a plethora of new tactical flashlights, seemingly good ones, with high lumen output.  It’s nice to see competition, and flashlights seem to be the area that has sustained the most competition.  It might be some time before all of those brands have been stress tested and compared against one another.

ARs were selling for 1.5 – 2 times what I paid.  PMAGs (which I bought) were plentiful even though there is a long waiting list when ordering directly over the web.  Unfortunately, they were going for twice what I paid several years ago.  I went primarily for the ammunition though, and this is where it gets sad.

5.56 mm cartridges are going for $1 per round.  You just cannot find it for less, at least not right now.  I fear that the days of $.50 per round are gone forever.  M1 Carbine ammunition is very scarce, although I did find some.  .45, .40, .38 and all of the standard caliber handgun ammunition seemed plentiful enough to meet the demand, at least early in the show, both in target (FMJ and MC) and personal defense rounds.  Within hours supplies were noticeably diminished.

The one standout was 9 mm.  What was once the most ubiquitous round in America cannot be found.  There were a few boxes of personal defense rounds, but no target rounds.  There were stories from the dealers about selling 9 mm handguns to customers back at their stores and then getting complaints that the customers bought guns for which there was no ammunition.

The best deal at the show was the going price for XDm .40.  My own opinion, being both an XDm owner and S&W M&P owner, is that the XDm is a tighter, more well balanced weapon.  It’s all a matter of personal opinion, but when they’re selling XDms for $530, there is no debate.

The most common opinion at the gun show?  To a man and woman, everyone blames the administration and its enablers for this high-gun-price and ammunition shortage situation.  Like most other crises on the planet, this one is entirely man-made.  The self-proclaimed ruling class should take note.  The peasants are angry.  Really angry.  At all of you.  And they don’t consider themselves peasants.  They would use the term sovereign citizens.

In response to Wayne Lapierre And The Apocalypse, Dave Hardy writes as follows:

Here are my own thoughts. A ban on private sales will be unenforceable in the near future, since guns being found will have been initially sold before its effective date, and thus a lawful private transfer before the ban went into effect cannot be ruled out.

But even after, say, ten years pass, the ban will still be unenforceable in practice unless Congress also either:

1) Enacts national firearm registration, requiting FFLs to report all sales so they can be placed in a national database, and requires such reporting backdated to the effective date of the private sales ban, or

2) Makes firearm possession illegal, period, providing for a defense if the gun owner can prove they bought the gun before before the effective date of the ban, or bought it from an FFL after the ban.

Visit Dave’s site for the rest.  He is making a legal and technical point, one that I have seen before.  Perhaps he’s right, but be warned.  First of all, I am concerned about prosecutorial overreach and discretion.  But second, holes in any universal background check law can be plugged in the future once the basic framework is constructed.

Finally, here is the most serious warning.  I work with the federal government on at least a semi-regular basis, and when not, I am doing things that follow federal regulation, even though highly technical (the specific nature of what I do is not the subject and won’t be discussed).

For most people who never work with federal agencies and departments, ignorance is bliss.  But for those who do, they know that the nasty little secret about the federal government has to do with lawmaking by regulation.

Laws are passed by the Senate and Congress.  But after laws pass, thousands of lawyers inside the beltway go to work writing regulations based on those laws, or not, using the law as a pretext for further regulation that Congress didn’t specifically intend.  At times, Congress has even had to pass laws undoing regulations because the regulations don’t meet the intent of the law, and yet the executive branch won’t stop enforcing that regulation (or class of regulations).

Regulation is passed merely by entering them into the federal register, allowing a waiting time for public comments (which are nothing but a chance afforded to the authors of the regulations to ignore them or write sarcastic rebuttals), and then after the waiting period, it takes on the force of law including prosecution, fines and imprisonment for failure to follow them.

This happens every day, all over the nation, and in the DOT, NRC, EPA, DOJ, ATF, DHS, and other departments and agencies that the reader cannot even name and didn’t know existed.  Any law giving the executive branch the authority to further regulate firearms will be an opportunity for abuse, overreach and exploitation.

Take it from someone who has seen it.  Don’t trust the Leviathan.  It is a monster and it has monstrous intentions.

As a warning shot over the bow, South Carolina is poised to take action to protect the rights of its citizens.

Congratulations, you are a member of South Carolina’s “unorganized militia.” Now that you know that, state Sen. Tom Corbin, R-Greenville, wants to make sure you have access to guns in case the governor ever calls on you to defend the state.

Corbin has proposed a new state law — unanimously approved Wednesday by a Senate subcommittee — that would guarantee all members of the unorganized militia “shall have the right, at his own expense, to acquire, possess, keep, and bear all firearms that could be legally acquired or possessed by a citizen of South Carolina as of December 31, 2012.”

Translated that means — barring an almost certain constitutional challenge if the proposal becomes law — you can buy an assault weapon, regardless of whether the federal government bans them, as President Barack Obama and others have proposed.

The proposed law is based on a state law, dating back to 1881, that refers to an “unorganized militia” made up of “all able bodied persons over 17 years of age.”

“All of us here can sit back and go, ‘Finally, I don’t have to worry about giving up my shotgun or giving up my Ruger pistol or whatever. It’s over,” Corbin said. “This bill just simply says it is now part of our unorganized militia’s weaponry, therefore it is protected. … It can’t be changed by anyone outside of South Carolina.”

We had previously discussed this as a possibility, but it’s good to see that this had the unanimous support of the Senate subcommittee.  Perhaps it will pass with ease.  But wait, pointy-head has to get involved.

Nice try, but it won’t work, said Thomas Crocker, an associate professor of law at the USC School of Law who specializes in constitutional law.

It is true, Crocker said, that South Carolina can specify weapons for its unorganized militia — a concept dating back to the 18th century, when states did not have modern police forces or National Guards. States then had laws requiring everyone to own a musket and be ready to fight against outlaws or attacking Native Americans.

“The trick is if the federal government enacts an assault-weapons ban, making it illegal to have the AR-15, that will trump automatically any state law,” Crocker said. “It doesn’t matter if the state statute says that is an approved weapon. It is an illegal weapon under federal law and federal law trumps.”

Really?  Is it just that simple?  The federal government can pass any law imaginable and it trumps state laws regardless of any other considerations?  Perhaps pointy-head has been educated beyond his intelligence level.  He may be smart, but he doesn’t have a lick of common sense and he doesn’t know the very state in which he works.  I do.

Here’s a suggestion, send some federal agents to Pickens, Travelers Rest and Marietta, and up around the Jocassee Gorges, Devil’s Fork and Gap Creek areas to collect guns – that is, after you get all of the local Sheriffs to cooperate with you.  Write me a note and tell me how that goes.

Examiner:

Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, decrying America’s demonization of guns, is predicting that the parade of new gun control laws, cheered on by President Obama, will hit the Supreme Court soon, possibly settling for ever the types of weapons that can be owned.

Scalia, whose legacy decision in the 2008 case of District of Columbia vs. Heller ended the ban on handguns in Washington, D.C., suggested that the Constitution allows limits on what Americans can own, but the only example he offered was a shoulder-launched rocket that would bring down jets.

And the wily judge suggested to an audience of Smithsonian Associates at George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium Tuesday night that he is not just preparing for a new gun control challenge, but that he’s softening up one of his liberal colleague on guns.

The long-time duck hunter revealed that he’s taken Obama appointee Elena Kagan hunting several times, the last being for big game in Wyoming where she shot a whitetail doe. “She dropped that doe with one shot,” he said during an event that featured questions from NPR’s court reporter Nina Totenberg.

[ … ]

Scalia explained why he wrote Heller, but wouldn’t discuss current gun control limits in Congress and the states. “There are doubtless cases on the way up,” he said, adding that limits on what weapons can be owned will likely be part of any new decision. “There are doubtless limits, but what they are we will see.”

Commentary

Good.  Let’s rock.  Let’s get on with the preservation or diminution of our rights and freedoms.  Time is wasting.  It’s time to revisit the decisions in Heller and McDonald, not because, as Justice Ginsburg thinks, there might be a reversal of Heller on the horizon with a “future, wiser court,” but because Heller didn’t go far enough.  The Supreme Court recognized our right to ownership of firearms, but didn’t specifically broach the issue of “bearing” those arms, i.e., carrying them for personal defense.

This relationship that appears to be developing between Scalia and Kagan is, I’m sure, very sweet and and all of that, but I wouldn’t count on her vote.  Furthermore, the whole issue of duck hunting concerns me.  The Second Amendment, as Scalia knows, isn’t about duck hunting, or deer hunting, or any other “sporting purpose.”  The sporting purposes test imposed by the last round of onerous firearms laws, and enforced by the ATF, is entirely unconstitutional.  I have said before that I think the test is misapplied, and that if it is a firearm, it has a sporting purpose.  But proliferation of this test through the judiciary (from some future decision) is cowardly because it doesn’t formally recognize the truth, and that is that the second amendment exists in order to ameliorate tyranny.

But for the courts, just remember that we firearms owners aren’t likely to have any more respect for confiscatory policies (or anything that can enable confiscation such as universal background checks), onerous policies (such as counting the number of cartridges I can put in my magazine), or unconstitutional tests (like sporting purposes) coming from the courts than we would if it came from the Congress or the President.  And just for the record, the Supreme Court became a laughingstock over the decision on Obamacare.  You wouldn’t want to put the final nail in the coffin holding your honor or respectability, would you?

Be very careful.  Think wisely.  Don’t start things you cannot stop.

UPDATE: Thank you for the visit on this article.  It is timely and important.

Via Instapundit, Joe Manchin in his words:

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said Monday that he opposes an assault weapons ban.

Speaking on MSNBC, Manchin, who has an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association and in December called for federal action to reduce gun violence, said he thinks there’s a better way to reduce mass shootings without introducing new restrictions for gun owners.

“I do not support an assault weapon ban because the definition of assault weapon is still hard to come by,” Manchin said. “So I am not going to comment on people’s legislation. I do not support that approach right now.”

Manchin is part of a quartet of legislators working to tighten background checks required to purchase a gun. The other members of the group are Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.).

Of course, the fact that the definition of assault weapon is itself defined in the legislation (an example of circular reasoning) is a ridiculous reason for not supporting it.  But of course, Joe is lying.  The real reason that he isn’t supporting a new AWB is because it cannot pass.  The real reason he should oppose it is because it is unconstitutional and immoral, though Joe isn’t too worried about trivialities like that.

What Joe is doing is working with totalitarians to enact universal background checks, thus setting up a national gun registry.  I expect this out of Joe.  I am saddened to see it out of Eric and Paul.

Part I: Mental Health Checks Are Not The Answer To Gun Violence

Part II: Guns And Crazy Men

The Capital Times notes that Ann Althouse weighed in on the issue of gun violence and mental health checks.  Her blog “lights up” on this issue, according to the report.  In fact Ann does have a smart and whimsical style of writing, interspersed with humor, and so one must usually read her thoughts more than one time in order to make sure that you’re not misinterpreting her prose.

But I think I’ve got what she says this time around, and I have some difficulty with her views.

Bonavia implies that we ought to make policy based on the percentages. But then she says, make a pervasive law that applies to everyone, without mentioning the very small percentage of perpetrators of gun violence within the truly vast category of Americans who buy guns. And by the way, the category “gun violence” lumps things together. Gun control has become a hot issue because of a few massacres. If you make a category out of the set of incidents that has inflamed present-day opinion, people suffering from mental illness seem to be 100% of the perpetrators! You only get your very small percentage if you throw in other types of incidents, such as gangsters wiping each other out. Wake me up when 90% of Americans want to do something about that. And explain to me how background checks have any curative power over that problem.

The appeal to statistics and reason falls flat when you shape it to suit the policy you already want.

“Only 4 to 5 percent of violent crimes are committed by people with mental illness,” Dilip Jeste, the president of the [American Psychiatric Association], says in a statement. “About one quarter of all Americans have a mental disorder in any given year, and only a very small percentage of them will ever commit violent crimes.”See what I mean? Questions for Dr. Jeste: 1. What percentage of school shootings are committed by persons with mental illness? 2. If we cut the category “violent crimes” down to massacre-type shootings where the motive isn’t robbery and the victim isn’t someone with whom the shooter has a personal dispute, what percentage of those crimes are committed by persons with mental illness? 3. If we break the category “mental disorder” into subparts, so that depression and schizophrenia aren’t lumped together, is there any category within which you cannot say that only very small percentage will ever commit violent crimes? 4. In your effort to shield the mentally ill from unnecessary stigma, are you giving cover to a set of persons who could and should be identified as dangerous?

Ann might be affirming the consequent, where given some mental malady, since some shooter (or several shooters) commit[s] a mass killing, therefore killings will be committed only by those with the identified mental malady.  But this error in propositional logic is too fundamental and I don’t think Ann is arguing in this way.

More likely, Ann is arguing (or has argued) in a probabilistic manner herself, that the preponderance of mass shootings have been committed by those with some identified mental malady.  Therefore, prohibiting people with that specific malady from owning weapons will decrease the number of mass shootings.

If I have interpreted Ann correctly, take careful note of the unstated presuppositions in her argument.  First, she is assuming that mental health professionals can correctly identify that malady, and second, she is assuming that only persons with that specific malady (or perhaps one or two others) will commit mass shootings.

Neither appears to bear the weight of scrutiny.  The mental health professionals I cite in the earlier reports on mental health checks and gun ownership state categorically that they cannot identify illness in many circumstances.  They also state rather categorically that violence of all kinds – mass shootings or not – are not a function of specific mental illnesses.

I usually roll my eyes at the lack of scholarship and honesty when I read Huffington Post.  But today there was refreshing honesty from yet another mental health professional concerning what his own profession cannot accomplish.

As we debate the steps to reducing gun violence in the society a couple points need to be understood: 1. The link between violent crime and mental illness is weak, and 2. Mental health professionals are poor at predicting anyone’s propensity for any specific behavior, including homicide.

Although it is mass shootings, particularly the massacre of school children in Newtown, that capture our attention and have accelerated the current discussion, Americans for the most part kill each other with guns in ones and twos. Of the total number of gun deaths in this country, around 30,000 a year, the majority are not the result of mental illness, but of ordinary human emotions like anger, hate, greed, and despair. In fact, about half of all shootings are suicides.

[ … ]

The only real predictor of future violence in anyone turns out to be a past history of violent behavior. Absent this, professionals are little better than the average citizen at identifying those likely to harm others. Many people report violent fantasies (remember your reaction to the last person to cut you off in traffic); few act on them.

[ … ]

As we confront the reality of these systemic deficits, however, we ought not to do so under the illusion that we are responding to the problem of gun violence. These are separate and largely unrelated issues, both of which deserve our immediate attention and informed response.

It is true that mental health checks can be abused and thus rights denied for incorrect reasons, and it is true that mental health professionals often disagree, and it is true that given a reason to deny rights, a totalitarian state will usually find a way to use it for totalitarian purposes.  All of these things concern me and in fact militate against such checks being a necessary prerequisite for gun ownership, in my opinion (See earlier discussions of the checks we must go through in my own county to obtain a concealed handgun permit, which I do have, and also the “fitness for duty” program and managerial observation we must go through having unescorted access to nuclear power plants – both checks being pretty much worthless in my view, and yet subject to unconstitutional denial of rights).

But the objection raised by the mental health professionals goes beyond my own objections.  In every case, they are saying that there is no identity between those who commit violent crime and any specific mental malady, and beyond that, they are little better than the average person at identifying propensity to violence anyway.

Laws only imperfectly supply incentive for certain behavior and disincentive for the opposite.  But what laws cannot do is ensure that certain behavior does not obtain.  That is a burden too far for legislation and ethics.  These issues ensconce squarely in the domain of morality, and laws do not change that.  Evil cannot be legislated (or medicated) away, and the best amelioration of risk associated with gun violence is to be prepared for self defense (including elimination of gun free zones).

Similarly, mental health professionals have weighed in telling us that their profession cannot possibly hope to shoulder the burden we wish to place on it.  It’s more than simply it is subject to abuse, which it is, or that the doctor-patient relationship is invaded, which it is.  It is that the “science” – if it can be called that at all, is simply incapable of sustaining the burden of gun violence, or any other form of violence, for that matter.  They cannot prevent it, regardless how much we may wish them to.