Posted on 10/29/2007 11:48:25 AM PDT by neverdem
--snip--
The Veterans Disarmament Act *Does Change* Federal Law
The fact is, this legislation rubber-stamps regulations that have been issued by the BATFE over the years. The net result is that Section 203(2) of S. 2084 ends up outlawing guns for millions of people (including veterans) who are not "currently prohibited" from owning guns.
You can see in greater detail how these regulations will drive the implementation of the Veterans Disarmament Act.
The bottom line is that this bill will ban a person from owning guns because he or she was merely diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, Alzheimer's, ADHD or bipolar disorder by a government psychologist or psychiatrist in the VA, Medicare, or the IDEA program. This is because the Veterans Disarmament Act will CODIFY regulations that BATFE has issued. (Again, see the URL above for more details.)
False Attempts At Defending The Veterans Gun Ban
Nevertheless, those who merely do word searches for "veteran" -- and thus conclude a bill has nothing to say about veterans -- try to defend what the Clinton administration did. Take Senator Hatch. He says, the Veterans Disarmament Act specifically excludes "any finding of mental illness that consists only of a medical diagnoses [sic] from being included in the NICS."
What Hatch is doing is quoting (or referencing) half a sentence in the bill to make the supposed argument that veterans who are only suffering from PTSD will not fall prey to the gun ban, since they are only subject to a "medical finding of disability."
This is a partial quote from Section 211(c)(1)(C) of S. 2084, which is duplicated in the House bill. But to say this -- that people can't lose their gun rights based solely on a "medical finding of disability" -- is to engage in an outright fraud... because the rest of the sentence in the bill says that they can be added into the NICS system if they represent a miniscule danger to themselves or others or are unable to handle their own affairs.
The legislation states that a person can’t lose their gun rights "based solely on a medical finding of disability, WITHOUT A FINDING THAT THE PERSON IS A DANGER TO HIMSELF OR TO OTHERS." (Emphasis added.) You see that? What little freedom is protected with the one hand, is destroyed with the other. What government shrink isn't going to say that a person suffering from PTSD is a potential danger -- even a teensy, weensy danger -- to himself or others?
A BATFE letter from May 9 of this year indicates that this danger does not have to be a substantial threat; it can be just a MINISCULE danger.
Yes, this gets slightly technical. But it helps to actually read entire sentences in the bill, rather than to selectively quote a passage here or there; and it especially helps to read the underlying federal code and regulations.
That's why Gun Owners of America has posted the entire bill -- and a scholarly point-by-point analysis of the Veterans Disarmament Act -- here. By reading this information for yourself, you can stay informed on the very real threat posed by this legislation.
When you read through that section, you will understand why the American Legion and the Military Order Of The Purple Heart have both opposed this bill. You will also see the PDF copies of their two letters of opposition, and see Sen. Tom Coburn's letter which GOA reported on last week. Sen. Coburn sent his letter to Veterans Affairs and asked them to explain how they plan to prevent even more veterans from being disarmed without due process.
There is a slippery slope, AND IT BEGINS IN NEW YORK!
It's never a very comforting thought when we realize we only have the rights the majority of nine politically appointed lawyers on the Supreme Court agree we have.
I’m with that!
“BATFE? Sounds like a concept for a convenience store”
I have been sent this ‘soliciation’ before and questioned whether the bill is actually called “Veterans Disarmament Act”... would imagine it is not the ‘official title’ and if one were to call a Pols office and inquire about the VDA many could say there was no such bill etc....
NOT defending ‘them’, just making an observation
I am all for privatizing the BATFE with this new mission. Not that I think those bureaucrats stand a snowballs chance of competing in the private sector.
“Are senate offices lying to you”?
Get real man. I’m not sure I remember when a senator or their office aren’t lying.
Stealing and lying is a prerequisite for a senate office.
The further you go up the senate power grid the greater a lying turd you become.
Let’s see, the shoot down of the airliner over Long Island.
The Branch Davidians in Waco, The Clintons and their Chi-Com contacts?
All allowed by senators lying.
If the govt. or their people tell ya the sun sets in the west ya had better check it before believing it.
NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007 (Referred to Senate Committee after being Received from House)[H.R.2640.RFS]
GOA is using dramatic rhetoric to get some attention because of veterans already denied due to be diagnosed with PTSD. I have nothing against the NRA except they are wrong on this issue. Even Ted Nugent who is on their Board of Directors agrees. Check the link in comment# 19.
PTSD must be looked at closely. I believe that more information is coming out that the guy in Bahraine that shot those two girls and himself may have been PTSD so I believe that although I want everyone to own a gun let’s make sure that people are safe as well.
Liberal anti-gun reasoning: No one needs a gun because some nut case might go crazy and shoot people!
Liberal anti-gun reasoning: No one needs a gun because some nut case might go crazy and shoot people!
No they're not.
There is no bill to take guns away from veterans.
No again. BUT... There is a bill that is vague enough that regulators (especially the BATFE kind) can at their whim add huge groups of individuals to the NICS list. While there is no language that specifically says a vet diagnosed with PTSD can't own a firearm, there is language that could indeed be used by the BATFE to justify a future interpretation that removes this right from veterans. Or for that matter anyone who has had such a finding.
This kind of regulatory expansion of law has happened before and it will happen again. I don't wish to knowingly give them the tools to do it.
The NRA is wrong here. That isn't a bash, just a statement of fact as I see it. Instead of siding with the opponents of our rights, the NRA should be pointing out (loudly, forcefully and constantly) that the Virginia Tech shootings were enabled and enhanced by the policies of the administrators in fighting against and preventing of CCW on campus. They were guilty of disarming students, they bragged about it, and the NRA has allowed them to quietly walk away from their complicity.
Of course not, it's the "NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007". But Congress rarely names an act something that actually describes what it does with any degree of accuracy. Often the title will describe some, usually minor, part of the bill/law, but not anything that would tend overload their email in boxes, fax machines and telephone lines.
They are power hungry, not stupid... well some of 'em are pretty dumb, but their staffers usually aren't.
If you think this one is bad. Take a look at Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2007. wherein the Attorney General at her complete discretion could deny someone the right to purchase firearms (or explosives). She could even withhold from that individual the reasons for such denial. ( I use the feminine pronoun for what should be obvious historical reasons)
New Book: How Shyness Became a Mental Illness
"... The number of mental disorders that children and adults in the general population might exhibit leaped from 180 in 1968 to more than 350 in 1994,” notes Lane, Northwestern's Herman and Beulah Pearce Miller Research Professor. In a book that calls in doubt the facade of objective research behind psychiatry's revolution, Lane questions the rationale for the changes, and whether all of them were necessary and suitably precise...
In examining the American Psychiatric Association archives, Lane -- who argues that psychiatry is using drugs with poor track records to treat growing numbers of normal human emotions -- even came across a proposal to establish “chronic complaint disorder,” in which people moan about the weather, taxes or the previous night's racetrack results.
“It might be funny,” he says, save for the fact that the DSM's next edition, due to be completed in 2012, is likely to establish new categories for apathy, compulsive buying, Internet addiction, binge-eating and compulsive sexual behavior. Don't look for road rage, however. It's already in the DSM, under intermittent explosive disorder."
How long before they twist the desire to own firearms into a category in the DSM?
Ping to #38
ATF is an organization which is not needed.
It should be disbanded and its rank and file absorbed into the F.B.I. and local law-enforcement where they belong.
We don’t need a national police force, ESPECIALLY one which can create its own “laws”.
The ATF is the closest thing America has to Brownshirts.
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