Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Jacob Sullum reminds us of the slippery slope of letting mental health "professionals" and politicians decide who is too crazy to own a firearm.

Who Is Too Unbalanced to Be Armed?
Even under current law, mental illness can become a label for unconventional political beliefs. Remember Brandon Raub, the Marine Corps veteran who was forced to undergo a psychiatric evaluation in Virginia last summer based on his conspiracy-minded, anti-government Facebook posts?
The malleability of mental illness was also apparent at a 2007 debate among the candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination. After seeing a YouTube video in which Jered Townsend of Clio, Mich., asked about gun control and referred to his rifle as "my baby," Joseph Biden said: "If that's his baby, he needs help. ... I don't know that he is mentally qualified to own that gun. I'm being serious."
So perhaps excessive attachment to your guns should be grounds for taking them away. Biden, by the way, is in charge of formulating the policies the Obama administration will pursue in response to Lanza's horrifying crimes.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Which is why there's a push to get every soldier who's served in A-Stan and IRQ with PTSD....then they can't own private guns legally.

Same with the American Psychiatric Association labeling 1 in 5 Americans having a mental illness....again, if they can document you've ever been depressed, angry, hyper active, etc.....they can disallow your ownership of arms.

Anonymous said...

I'm glad to see Obama put a guy who has plenty of experience with mental illness in charge.

Anonymous said...

Joe Biden! Now there's a staunch defender of The Second Amendment. I'm surprised they didn't bring Howard Metzenbaum back from the dead.

Ron Thomas said...

Brought to you by the federal government, the same folks that brought you the No-Fly list that includes toddler enemies of the state. Yes, they should decide.