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June 13, 2007 - We warned you just a few days ago that the NRA was working with anti-gun forces to pass new gun control.
Today, far sooner than we would have imagined, the bill passed in the US House, with almost no notice and no recorded vote.
HR 297 was quickly morphed into a new bill, HR 2640 (by notorious anti-gunner Carolyn McCarthy) and passed on a voice vote, with so little notice that the most pro-gun members of Congress didn't know it was on the agenda until early in the morning -- when the NRA actively lobbied their offices to pass the largest gun control move since the 1994 Assault Weapons ban.
The bill gives the Federal Government vast new access to people's mental health records and opens the door for expanded abuse of power, delays and denials of firearms purchases.
The bill purports to give people a chance to have their names removed from the no-buy list, but only at great personal expense... with no guarantee of success.
If the past is any indication, purchasing a firearm is about to become a lot more complicated.
Keep in mind that for years the ATF has been forbidden from doing any investigations to expunge records and return people's gun rights.
Now, with the help of the NRA, even more restrictions are being created.
Of course, unlike a "crime," "mental illness" is a very subjective evaluation.
As we at Wisconsin Gun Owners warned national and state-level gun rights organizations yesterday:
"Since 1952, the American Psychiatry Association (APA) has utilized the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) as its standard for defining, diagnosing and treating mental health disorders.
Since its first printing, the manual has undergone five revisions, the most recent being the DSM-IV, which was finalized in 1994. Currently a fifth version is being prepared and is due out by 2012.
Each new version contradicts the previous version; new authors with new perspectives and agendas write each new release. The standard keeps changing, shifting, sometimes radically so -- the result is that mental illness is never clearly or objectively defined. It is a moving target shaped by political and social pressures.
Following controversy and protests from gay activists at APA annual conferences from 1970 to 1973, the seventh printing of the DSM-II, in 1974, no longer listed homosexuality as a category of disorder. After talks led by the psychiatrist Robert Spitzer, who had been involved in the DSM-II development committee, a vote by the APA trustees in 1973, confirmed by the wider APA membership in 1974, replaced the diagnosis with a milder category of 'sexual orientation disturbance.'
In today's politically correct climate, the most recent version of the DSM-IV contains 'no reference to homosexuality.'
Which DSM was correct or were both wrong? One can easily see the danger this contradiction raises if these diagnoses were synced up with a gun owner database that acts as an automated judge, jury and executioner for the gun buyer.
Such variance also calls into question the credibility of those who define mental illness.
Psychiatrists can't even agree amongst themselves over a relatively short period of time on how to precisely define mental illness on any given issue. Thirty years ago no one heard the term "attention deficit disorder" or "post-traumatic stress disorder" -- today diagnoses for these new mental illnesses are commonplace."
We believe the next step -- if you don't think there's a "next step" you undoubtedly fit the description of mentally deranged -- is to require information and deny firearm purchases for anyone who has ever taken an anti-depressant (the estimates for the number of young adults in America who have, at one time, taken these anti-depressant drugs is staggering). If that happens, a large portion of a number of generations in America will be stripped of their Second Amendment rights.
The bottom line: If NICS is expanded, expect entire groups to be denied their right to purchase a firearm.
"Legislation like this paints with a broad brush and will disarm many good people who should be able to buy handguns," WGO warned. "One such group is veterans.
'[NICS Expansion] could have a significant impact on American servicemen,' wrote Gun Owners of America recently, 'especially those returning from combat situations and who seek some type of psychiatric care.
Often, veterans who have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder have been deemed as mentally 'incompetent' and are prohibited from owning guns under 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(4). Records of those instances certainly exist, and, in 1999, the Department of Veterans Administration turned over 90,000 names of veterans to the FBI for inclusion into the NICS background check system.'"
Once again, NRA leadership has colluded with anti-gunners to pass new gun control and tell gun owners it's good for them. They're asserting to NRA members what is good for them.
This is a dishonest tactic -- subterfuge being waged against all gun owners, deals being cut in smoky back rooms -- and it is not new: They did so when the Brady Instant-Check Registration system was passed into law, and now they're attempting to strengthen that gun control -- weakening our rights.
According to CQ.com "Advocates of House-passed legislation say it likely would have prevented the gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, from buying a firearm because of his history of mental illness." But this is, of course, nonsense. The Brady law has not kept criminals from getting guns and won't stop madmen from getting them either. But it might very well stop you.
To stop this in the Senate will mean fighting not only the anti-gunners in the Legislature, but America's biggest "gun lobby." Please consider making whatever contribution you can to WGO by clicking here.
