I ran across a peculiar column last week, but I held off commenting on it.
Mass Shootings: If No One Else Will Offer a Solution, I Will
While everyone is screaming to ban “weapons of war” or whatever the ridiculous phrase du jour is, nobody is offering any kind of solution. We keep saying we need to “have real conversations about mental health,” but we never do. So if we’re not going to ban firearms or have a kumbaya drum circle for mental health, and if no one else is going to offer a solution, I will.That’s right, yours truly has a policy idea that might move us in the right direction. Because I am going out on a limb here, I’ll go ahead and say that I welcome other ideas, influences, and perspectives. All I ask is that we keep the disagreements civil when we comment down below. Lastly, I use the word “firearm” to cover any weapon that relies on a firing pin, as well as ammunition with a percussion primer. With this definition, make, model, or capacity does not matter.
The reason I held back is this proposal confused the heck out me. It appears at PJ Media, which is a fairly conservative outlet with — usually — a firm grounding in the Constitution and reality. Ashley McCully appears to be a regular contributor.
By McCully’s proposal is anything but Constitution- and reality-based. Before I tore her a figurative new one, I considered the possibiltiy that this is satire. The law she proposes reads like a far-left Dimocrat wishlist; it’s a thoroughly impractical, immoral, and unconstitutional rape of rights.
On the other hand we have the column’s URL: a-modest-proposal-to-prevent-mass-shootings-and-preserve-gun-rights-n1738194
That certainly hearkens back to the very model of literary satire. But was she writing satire, or did an editor pick that URL to poke fun at her “serious” proposal?
I attempted to contact her, but heard nothing for days. So I’m going assume that she meant what she said.
Here goes.
Regardless of how the firearm is purchased, gifted, bequeathed, or obtained, the individual taking receipt of the firearm must present a written statement from a licensed mental health professional endorsing the requesting individual as mentally stable and competent enough to possess a firearm.
That’s an interesting take on the Second Amendment, apparently now reading A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people who have been medically approved to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Up yours, Ashley. And you might want to run your idea past Clarence Thomas, because that requirement is a massive fail on the BRUEN test of “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
She’d be hard pressed to find and such law in our national tradition, seeing as how the very field of “psychology” didn’t exist until 1854, and didn’t get rolling in the United States until around 1875. And medical licensing? That wasn’t really a thing until the 1870s. And the first actually restrictive medical licensing law was passed in 1881, and only upheld by the Supreme Court in 1889.
In the event an individual is deemed mentally unstable and/or incompetent to possess a firearm by a licensed health professional, then it will also be deemed reasonable to search any and all property of the individual by law enforcement for the sole purpose of identifying and seizing deadly weapons, to include firearms. The written diagnosis by a licensed mental health professional will be declared suitable for probable cause for a warrant to be issued.
There are a couple of problems here. Begging permission to obtain a firearm, and failing to get that permission, is probable cause to ransack a home for the firearm he didn’t get?!
And currently, it would be a HIPAA violation for that licensed mental health professional to voluntarily forward that personal health information, the diagnosis, to the cops. You’ll need to amend 45 CFR 164.512(f)(1)(i)), too, Ashely.
But that’s moot; because no sane mental health pro is going to issue certification.
If the requesting individual commits any crime with a firearm, the license of the endorsing mental health professional will be suspended throughout the criminal investigation. If the requesting individual is found guilty of any crime with a firearm, then the endorsing mental health professional may lose their license permanently and may be subject to criminal charges.
Note the lack of specification of time frame or what firearm is used. If someone gets a gun, lives peacefully for 30 years, then sudden decides to unlawfully pull a trigger — maybe of a gun that some other doc signed off on — the original doc loses his license and goes to jail. Both, in fact. What doctor is going to assume that perpetual liability? Since it would effectively be impossible to get approval, this effectively bans private ownership of firearms.
Speaking of liability…
Regardless of relationship, if a firearm is used to commit any crime by any person, the registered owner of that firearm will be held criminally liable.
If I jump through McCully’s hoops and get a gun, I would be criminally liable if a burglar broke into my house, shot me, tore my gun safe out of the floor, ripped it open with a plasma cutter, took one of my guns, and used it to rob someone else. Ashley’s liability language makes no exception.
Up yours with a prickly pear, Ashley.
Oh, and did you notice that “registered owner” bit? Yep, her wanna-be law presupposes registration. Language in other parts make it clear that the registry she so blithely assumes would include currently owned firearms, not just those bought under her new police state process.
I’m going to guess, like Hollywood writers who have cops checking gun registrations in southern states, McCully lives in a state that does have registration and stupidly assumes everyone else does, too.
Hint, Ashley: most of the country does not register firearms and owners. And in some states, Georgia and Florida for example, creating a registry is serious felony.
I’m skipping some other — mostly liability — points, and going straight to the finale. Which either solidly establishes this as satire, or Ashley as bug-f##k nuts.
Anyone connected to an individual who has been deemed mentally unstable and/or incompetent enough to possess a firearm and has had at least one firearm or deadly weapon seized by the State under Title II, including but not limited to family, friends, colleagues, roommates, associates, or acquaintances, must provide a secondary verbal and written affirmation that they will be held criminally liable for any crime committed by anyone involving the firearms for which they are registered owners.
You may need to read that a couple of time to parse it out.
If you know someone in passing — a neighbor down the street with whom you exchange greetings — that is a prohibited person for mental reasons…
…even if you don’t know it…
…you must swear verbally and in writing (redundant, that) that you will be held criminally liable if said acquaintance… well, see the earlier burglary/plasma cutter scenario.
Ashley’s proposal doesn’t include any mechanism for identifying and contacting the prohibited person’s family, friends, colleagues, roommates, associates, or acquaintances, or anyone “connected to” and sharing their personal legal and medical history. So I’ll be damned if I know how you’re supposed to know to make that “affirmation,” much less to whom.
I would really prefer that is satire, but the fact that McCully wouldn’t respond doesn’t look good.