OK. Read the proclamation. I agree with most of it. I have a few questions though.
1) Isn't Vermont's carry for 16 year olds and above? Does Ruger think they should change?
2) There is a difference between the legal definition of insane and "mental health problems." Insane is a legal term not a psychiatric one. An example of a psychiatric diagnosis is attention deficit disorder. Get a DSM IV. Read the diagnostic criteria. Over 30% of American males fulfill the criteria. Look at the statistics for how many kids are on Ritalin or equivalent drugs for this diagnosis. Talk to some teachers about how many kids in their classes are taking medications for this disorder. People, if we go with this we have just disqualified a large percentage of the youth of America from ever legally owning firearms.
I heard of one person who was voluntarily admitted overnight for observation after experiencing severe anxiety after witnessing a violent murder. ONE night...voluntarily. He was later denied "permission" to purchase a firearm because of his mental health history. Do we really want to go there? Perhaps mental health in regard to firearm purchase should be the legal definition of insane: Can the person distinguish between right and wrong?
The third point I have just a little bit of a problem with is the unsupervised youth bit. Maybe I'm just showing my age and remembering a different time but I received my first firearm when I was 8 years old. I was hunting without supervision at 12. Between 8 and 12 my father taught me, watched me, and taught me some more. When he was satisfied, I was given permission to hunt small game alone. I live on the edge of town (less than 1000 feet from a school, oh my!) and would walk from my home, across the street, and into the woods. I can look out my window and see the tree where I shot my first squirrel. As a teenager I walked the streets of my neighborhood in hunting season with a shotgun and a .22 rifle. No one blinked an eye. Imagine what would happen to a kid today. It's a damn shame, people. Who could have imagined such a loss of freedom in a period of thirty years?
