Veterans Disarmament Act - HR 2640 Stalled in Senate [merged threads]

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TPAW

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GUYS! READ THIS IMPORTANT MESSAGE AND TAKE ACTION, THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS!!!!!!!

Subject: Fw: VETERANS DISARMAMENT ACT TO BAR VETS FROM OWNING GUNS

By Larry Pratt
September 22, 2007
NewsWithViews.com

Hundreds of thousands of veterans -- from Vietnam through Operation Iraqi Freedom -- are at risk of being banned from buying firearms if legislation that is pending in Congress gets enacted.

How? The Veterans Disarmament Act -- WHICH HAS ALREADY PASSED THE HOUSE!! -- would place any veteran who has ever been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) on the federal gun ban list.

This is exactly what President Bill Clinton did over seven years ago when his administration illegitimately added some 83,000 veterans into the National Criminal Information System (NICS system) -- prohibiting them from purchasing firearms, simply because of afflictions like PTSD.

The proposed ban is actually broader. Anyone who is diagnosed as being a tiny danger to himself or others would have his gun rights taken away ... forever. It is section 102(b)(1)(C)(iv) in HR 2640 that provides for dumping raw medical records into the system. Those names -- like the 83,000 records mentioned above -- will then, by law, serve as the basis for gun banning.

No wonder the Military Order of the Purple Heart is opposed to this legislation.

The House bill, HR 2640, is being sponsored by one of the most flaming anti-Second Amendment Representatives in Congress: Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY). Another liberal anti-gunner, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), is sponsoring the bill in the Senate.
Proponents of the bill say that helpful amendments have been made so that any veteran who gets his name on the NICS list can seek an expungement.

But whenever you talk about expunging names from the Brady NICS system, you’re talking about a procedure that has always been a long shot. Right now, there are NO EXPUNGEMENTS of law-abiding Americans’ names that are taking place under federal level. Why? Because the expungement process which already exists has been blocked for over a decade by a "funds cut-off" engineered by another anti-gunner, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY).
So how will this bill make things even worse? Well, two legal terms are radically redefined in the Veterans Disarmament Act to carry out this vicious attack on veterans’ gun rights.

One term relates to who is classified a "mental defective." Forty years ago that term meant one was adjudicated "not guilty" in a court of law by reason of insanity. But under the Veterans Disarmament Act, "mental defective" has been stretched to include anyone whom a psychiatrist determines might be a tiny danger to self or others.

The second term is "adjudicate." In the past, one could only lose one's gun rights through an adjudication by a judge, magistrate or court -- meaning conviction after a trial. Adjudication could only occur in a court with all the protections of due process, including the right to face one's accuser. Now, adjudication in HR 2640 would include a finding by "a court, commission, committee or other authorized person" (namely, a psychiatrist).

Forget the fact that people with PTSD have the same violent crime rate as the rest of us. Vietnam vets with PTSD have had careers and obtained permits to carry firearms concealed. It will now be enough for a psychiatric diagnosis (a "determination" in the language of the bill) to get a veteran barred ªfor life ª from owning guns.

Think of what this bill would do to veterans. If a robber grabs your wallet and takes everything in it, but gives you back $5 to take the bus home, would you call that a financial enhancement? If not, then we should not let HR 2640 supporters call the permission to seek an expungement an enhancement, when prior to this bill, veterans could not legitimately be denied their gun rights after being diagnosed with PTSD.

Veterans with PTSD should not be put in a position to seek an expungement. They have not been convicted (after a trial with due process) of doing anything wrong. If a veteran is thought to be a threat to self or others, there should be a real trial, not an opinion (called a diagnosis) by a psychiatrist.

If members of Congress do not hear from soldiers (active duty and retired) in large numbers, along with the rest of the public, the Veterans Disarmament Act -- misleadingly titled by Rep. McCarthy as the NICS Improvement Amendments Act -- will send this message to veterans: "No good deed goes unpunished."
© 2007 Larry Pratt - All Rights Reserved
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Larry Pratt has been Executive Director of Gun Owners of America for 27 years. GOA is a national membership
 
This again? Next time please use a more descriptive thread title, so I can avoid clicking on it if I already know about it.
 
Wasn't there some directive recently about drive-by postings with copypasta from elsewhere?

And this is the same !@#% tinfoil hattery from the GOA. Pay it no mind.

For those that don't know, BEING JUDGED MENTALLY INCOMPETENT is a court process! You'd sure know if you were!

PTSD and getting mental help in the form of depression medication and therapy have NOTHING to do with this.

The GOA nut has been continually citing California law that has nothing to do with this, and pulling allegations out of his posterior that have nothing to do with the reality of the bill. Larry Pratt is two steps from frothing and screaming about black helicopters and UFOs.

Read the bill. It strengthens NICS and knocks out some of the liberal objections to "labeling" people who are judged mentally incompetent by the court and ordered to go to court-ordered treatment. Like that Cho guy.

And THAT IS ALL.
 
DIRTY HARRY

I am not a veteran, but this sounds outragous. What can I do to help?

You can write, E-mail or call your congressmen and senator and ask them to give you an explaination about Bill HR 2640 and how it applys to veterans.
Many others are doing so as I type. This bill must be stopped. If they can do this to veterans, non-veterans are next. The left wing of society is trying to take our rights away. If this happens, the 2nd Amendment won't mean anything. This is a serious matter.
 
Manedwolf

And this is the same !@#% tinfoil hattery from the GOA. Pay it no mind.
Click to expand...

That's the same kind of talk that got us where we are now, fighting to preserve our 2nd Amendment. Don't take it so lightly. We all have a horse in this race.
 
So Cho should have been able to purchase the guns he purchased, despite the court order?

That's what you're saying there, TPAW.
 
Manedwolf- I don't think anybody wants people like Cho to have a gun.... however, what is the most effective way to disarm him? Is it with legislation that will only be effective if he goes through legal channels, or is it a physical disarmament on-site?

I am personally more frightened of the federal government than I am of a psycho killer. At least if the feds aren't involved I will still have the means to defend myself. The killer can be dealt with in a very personal sense.... a well-insulated politician is a different story.

The government has a very poor track record with firearms legislation... they never stop with a little bit. They could ultimately use legislation like this to expand the "prohibited" class exponentially.

A psychopath will get his/her killing tools no matter what the law says. If the students in VA weren't disarmed the killing spree would have been much shorter.
 
A psychopath will get his/her killing tools no matter what the law says. If the students in VA weren't disarmed the killing spree would have been much shorter.
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Agreed on the latter. However, the former is often thrown out as fact, when it's far from 100% guaranteed. There's a very real chance that your average psychopath who has no prior criminal connections will end up arrested or dead in his quest for an illegal firearm. It's not guaranteed either, but if we can make it more likely without infringing on the rights of law-abiding non-psychopaths, I can't bring myself to call this a bad thing.

Of course, how we manage to do so is another story...because as others have pointed out such measures tend to creep beyond their original stated purpose.
 
JuanCarlos.... I'm not saying ALL crazies will get a weapon.... just any of the who are determined to kill. A car, baseball bat, bottle full of gasoline with a rag in the top, kitchen knife of machete.... all can be used to kill a lot of people if no criminal connections are available. I would hate to see what kind of damage could be done in a crowded school with several molitov cocktails and a machete....

What I'm saying is that I'm more worried about the feds regulating things than I am about crazies killing me. I'd much rather be responsible for my own safety in an unhindered state than depend on an entity who has proven their tendency to take that ability away.
 
But being declared mentally incompetent by the court is not something you can be surprised with in the mail. You'd have appeared before a judge to be told such.

It's a very serious thing. The GOA guy is literally lying to make it sound like someone who gets Prozac will be on the "NO" list, and that's just not true.
 
Not another thread with this same stuff :rolleyes: I used to have some respect for the GOA but since they started this stuff my respect for them has slipped a couple of notches.
 
TPAW,

Since I'm sure you have actually read H.R. 2640 rather than just relied on what Larry Pratt had to say about it, would you kindly point out exactly where in this proposed legislation it says it "would place any veteran who has ever been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) on the federal gun ban list"?

Would you also kindly point out the language that states "Anyone who is diagnosed as being a tiny danger to himself or others would have his gun rights taken away ... forever"? The section referrenced by Pratt clearly uses the word "adjudicated", not "diagnosed". "Adjudicated" is the current standard that has been in effect for years - H.R. 26450 makes no change to the current standard.

I also was unable to find where "adjudication in HR 2640 would include a finding by ""a court, commission, committee or other authorized person" (namely, a psychiatrist)." In fact, I got frustrated and dragged the entire text into a word processor, searched for the terms "committee" and "authorized person" to no avail. The term "court, board, commission, or other lawful authority" is used only in referrence to denying access to records, not to the act of adjudicatng a person as mentally defective, etc. Where is Pratts' assertion to be found in this bill?
 
TPAW, I'm getting really tired of saying this, but....

Larry Pratt (AKA GOA) is talking straight out of his butt. There are 5 other threads on this topic. All of them are still open for comment. Two of them were major threads. If you had taken the trouble to do a search on "2640," you would know this.

more from GOA on passage of H.R. 2640 27 posts and still open.

Dem/NRA agreement. 65 posts and still open.

The only thing that is new about this bill, and something Pratt should have known, is that it may go down in flames, because the Dems in the Senate are bickering about some amendments they want in it. It's still in committee and may never see the light of day!

You would think that this would be good news to Pratt, wouldn't you? But Nooooo, Larry has to send out another "GOA Alert" to froth up the mindless masses...

Read the dang legislation, would you? Then go read the two threads above. If you still have questions about the language, several of us would be happy to explain it to you. But I'll also warn you, that if you are a firm believer in Pratts brand of Kool-aid, you won't like our answers.

Now, having said all of that, your opening post is a drive-by post (the definitions are in the sticky at the top of this forum. You did read that sticky, yes?). Instead of closing it, right off the bat, I'm gonna make this one exception. But only so you can get back to us and let us know if you have actually read the legislation or if you are simply taking the word of someone who has an ax to grind with the NRA.
 
Antipitas,

Thank you very much for your interpretation and opinion concerning Bill HR 2640. I have read the legislation and will review it again in an effort to decipher it, and better understand the legal terminology. Like many anti gun bills, a hidden agenda is always a possibility that requires a careful and deliberate examination of anything that will strip away more of our rights concerning the ownership of firearms. I have, and always will, be a firm supporter of the following:

Amendment II (the Second Amendment) of the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, declares "a well regulated militia" as "being necessary to the security of a free State", and prohibits Congress or any other government agency from infringement of "the right of the people to keep and bear arms."
 
I have read the legislation and will review it again in an effort to decipher it, and better understand the legal terminology.
Click to expand...

Heck, if Al says what it says, thats what it says...:D

Wild99%ofthetimevenidontcheckonhisinterpretaionsAlaska TM
 
From what I have read if the Dems dont pass it as the NRA agreed upon it. The NRA will withdraw its endorsment which like Anti says would be the death knell for it. Shame since it has some good stuff in it.
 
Thank you for responding, TPAW.

Here's the thing about this particular legislation; It defines that those that are not mentally fit to own or possess a firearm, not only must be adjudicated (which means they must be sent to a court and have their day there), but part of the diagnosis must state that the person so adjudicated is a danger to themselves and/or others.

This is not currently the case with those vets who sought out or received VA treatment for PTSD. Some 80K+ names were sent to the FBI by the VA to be included with the NICS check. These vets have no way of getting their names off of the "no-gun" list. This legislation not only provides that means, but for the first time in legislative gun law history, allows (actually it mandates) the States to set up their own means to review those who have been adjudicated mentally unstable but have recovered their faculties, to challenge the findings and have their names and data removed from the NICS computers.

This is all a good thing. This was how the NRA changed what was a very bad law into something that is actually good.

And as Eghad has said, should the Dems actually amend the dang thing, the NRA will pull its backing of the bill and it will fail on that alone.
TPAW said:
Amendment II (the Second Amendment) of the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, declares "a well regulated militia" as "being necessary to the security of a free State", and prohibits Congress or any other government agency from infringement of "the right of the people to keep and bear arms."
Click to expand...
Just as an aside, the only part of the 2A that has any real meaning is: "the right of the people, to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." The entire first part of the amendment is a prefatory clause (a preamble) and has no operation upon the second half of the amendment, nor does it even make any qualifications upon it. At least, the D.C. Circuit got that one correct!

I, like you, would like to see most, if not all federal gun laws, overturned. But the practical side also says that there is no such thing as an absolute right. The founders themselves knew and accepted this. For a society to function at all, there will always be limits to what we can and can't do... Regardless of enumerated or unenumerated rights.

Having said this, do I like the NICS check? No. I believe it to be nothing short of prior restraint. But.... Under current interpretation of law, it is a reasonable restraint. It is not going to go away, even if the SCOTUS grants cert and rules in favor of Heller.

Where we all differ (including the Courts) is on our interpretation of "reasonable."
 
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