Mental health ‘reforms’ could cast ‘blanket dragnet’ for gun rights disabilities

It’s a madhouse! Vice President Joe Biden’s task force is reported to be looking at widening the”government mental health loophole” to expand the state’s ability to disarm more citizens without full due process.
“While the rest of the nation squabbles over how to address the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary, we Alabama citizens can unite behind a no-cost change to our laws that all of us should clamor for immediately,” Mike Marshal of AL.com wrote in an editorial board opinion piece last Thursday. “Let’s reform the way we report involuntary mental health commitment records to the FBI.”
The problem, Marshal lamented, is “Our state law governing reporting to the NICS specifies that probate courts must only report cases including testimony from a sworn law enforcement officer. The officer must testify that the patient had a history of inappropriate use of firearms or posed a threat to use them inappropriately. Otherwise, the probate court is forbidden by Alabama law from reporting that case.”
In fairness, Marshal does address a key concern expressed by gun rights activists who have seen what should be called “government’s mental health loophole” abused.
“We should also create an appeals process for former patients who feel they were wrongly committed or believe they have sufficiently recovered and should be allowed to purchase firearms,” he writes. “Such appeals should start at the probate level, with the ability for further remedy in Alabama’s circuit courts.”
So can we unite behind a proposal he seems so sure ‘we’ will all clamor for? After all, who wants violent crazies running around with guns?
Perhaps we might also ask who wants violent crazies running around, period. After all, the greatest mass murder in the nation’s history was ostensibly enabled bymail room/office tools, the second greatest ostensibly committed with commonly available fuel oil and fertilizer, and the third perpetrated with about a buck’s worth of gasoline(albeit at 1990 prices). And like it or not, these atrocities bolster my longstanding contention that anyone who can’t be trusted with a gun can’t be trusted without a custodian, due to the easy and ubiquitous availability of box cutters, farm supplies and matches.

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