Flawed Oral Arguments in DC v. Heller

From Today's Survival blog ..

The press has been heralding the apparent agreement by the majority of supreme court justices in the recent oral arguments to DC v. Heller. that the Second Amendment confirms an individual right to keep and bear arms. This is good news, but I think that at least two crucial points were missed in the oral arguments.

The arguments made by Mr. Gura, in my opinion, were a disservice to American gun owners and "the militia at large". (Which consists of all male citizens age 17 to 45, per US Code Title 10, Section 311.) Gura discounts any Second Amendment protection for machineguns, because he claims that the Second Amendments protects only those guns "in common use" as suitable for individuals to bring from their homes, for their personal use in service with the militia. Gura stated:

"They wished to preserve the ability of people to act as militia, and so there was certainly no plan for, say, a technical obsolescence. However, the fact is that [US v.] Miller spoke very strongly about the fact that people were expected to bring arms supplied by themselves of the kind in common use at the time. So if in this time people do not have, or are not recognized by any court to have, a common application for, say, a machine gun or a rocket launcher or some other sort of ..."

That was a specious argument. What he overlooked is the fact that machineguns are not presently "in common use" only because 74 years ago, Congress effectively banned them, by placing a confiscatory tax and onerous fingerprinting and background check requirements upon purchasers. It is a tax of $200 per machinegun transfer. That might not sound "confiscatory" these days, but in 1934, $200 was nearly two months wages for the average working man! For comparison purposes, in 1934 that same $200 was more than the purchase price of a used Thompson submachinegun, 10 times the purchase price of a used M1911 pistol, and 20 times the purchase price of a used M1898 Krag service rifle. Clearly, only the very wealthy could afford to pay this tax. Hence, the potential market share and large scale production ("economies of scale") of privately owned machineguns was never allowed to develop. This was a glaring error that should have been caught by the court justices. Granted, shoulder-fired machine guns were fairly expensive in 1933 since they were a fairly recent technological development, but they became prohibitively expensive in 1934, after enactment of the National Firearms Act (NFA). The bottom line is that in 1933 your grandfather could have walked into your local gun store or hardware store and bought (or had them place special order) a Thompson submachinegun, and walk out with it, sans any paperwork. But in 1934 that became impossible. Hence, shoulder-fired machineguns were never allowed to come into "common use" by civilians.

In my opinion, Gura also stumbled badly when he stated: "At the time that -- even at the time Miller was decided, the civilian arms were pretty much the sort that were used in the military. However, it's hard to imagine how a machine gun could be a "lineal descendent," to use the D.C. Circuit's wording, of anything that existed back in 1791, if we want to look to the framing era."

I beg to differ! The US Springfield Armory designed and produced nearly all of the shoulder-fired arms for the US infantry from 1777 to the 1950s. You can follow the "lineal descent" of those rifles directly from flintlock muskets, to caplock rifles, to the Trapdoor Springfield, to the M1898 Krag, to the M1903 Springfield, to the M1 Garand, (semi-auto) and finally to the M14. Each of these iterations display some quite distinctive design features that are carried on from its immediate predecessor. Some design features are almost continuously-used (such as bayonet lugs and butt traps for cleaning equipment), but others (like stacking swivels) were eventually dropped, as military doctrine changed. It is notable that the pinnacle of this unbroken lineal descent was the M14 and it is fully automatic! The only distinct "lineal break" came when Defense Secretary Robert McNamara forced adoption of the Colt M16. But, again, the selective-fire (semi-auto and full auto) M14 pre-dated that lineal break. And, coincidentally, M14 rifles (now equipped with plastic stocks) are still in service with the US Army in limited numbers in the present day, as designated marksman's rifles.

Justice Kennedy hit the nail on the head when he stated:

"It seems to me that [US v.] Miller, as we're discussing it now, and the whole idea that the militia clause has a major effect in interpreting the operative clause is both overinclusive and underinclusive. I would have to agree with Justice Ginsburg that a machine gun is probably more related to the militia now than a pistol is. But that -- that seems to me to be allowing the militia clause to make no sense out of the operative clause in present-day circumstances."

Clearly, the Second Amendment secures both an individual right and a collective right. The NFA of 1934 and all subsequent Federal firearms laws should be struck down as unconstitutional!

Permalink

What a stew the powers that be have gotten themselves into.

They must be wary of the savvy citizen and want them disarmed.

At the same time, having set themselves up for foreign attack on US soil, they must ensure that citizens have gunZ.

Obviously more shall be revealed.

Meanwhile, guns or no, ammo is strictly controlled and people forget that.

Sigh.

SCOTUS rules on guns .. but wait ...

Justices Rule In Favor of Gun Rights

March 19, 2008, 12:51 pm
Filed under: 1st amendment, 2nd Amendment, Gun Control, US Constitution, Washington D.C., anti gun, bill of rights, free speech, militia, supreme court | Tags: Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

Supreme Court Justices Rule Individuals Have A Right To Own Guns

LA Times
March 19, 2008

The 2nd Amendment right to “keep and bear arms” finally had its day in the Supreme Court on Tuesday, and the long-held view that it protected the rights of gun owners appeared poised to win a historic victory.

Five of the justices, a bare majority, signaled that they thought the amendment gave individuals a right to have a gun for self-defense. It was not limited to arms for “a well-regulated militia,” they said.

By adopting that view, the justices are likely to strike down the nation’s strictest gun control law, a ban on handguns in the District of Columbia.

But Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said he favored a narrow ruling, one that would not cast doubt on an array of gun control laws across the nation. They include a ban on the sale of new machine guns, required background checks for new buyers of handguns and state licensing rules for those who wish to carry a concealed weapon.

“But I don’t know why when we are starting afresh we would try to articulate a whole standard that would apply in every case.” Roberts told one lawyer.

The court is indeed “starting afresh” with the 2nd Amendment, more than 200 years after it was adopted as part of the Bill of Rights. It says: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

The high court has never struck down a gun control law for violating the 2nd Amendment.

For many years, judges thought the amendment merely prohibited the federal government from interfering with the state’s right to maintain a “well-regulated militia.”

But most Americans know the second clause, referring to the “right of the people to keep and bear arms.” In polls, a large majority say they think it gives law-abiding people a right to own a gun.

Though the court appeared ready to agree with them, the chief justice alluded to the difficulty of deciding what kind of right was protected by the 2nd Amendment. Is the right to own a gun like the right to freedom of speech in the 1st Amendment? If so, most restrictions on that right would be in doubt. Or is the gun right subject to strict regulations by the government?

The justices strongly hinted Tuesday that they would leave open the question of whether many restrictions on gun rights would stand.

Nonetheless, a ruling recognizing an individual right in the 2nd Amendment would be a landmark. And it could well signal the beginning of an era in which anti-gun regulations are subject to legal challenges.

Read Full Article Here

New Bill to Register Ammunition
http://www.usavsus.info/US-AmmoRegistr.htm

If Courts Can Gut Second Amendment…
http://www.rense.com/general81/gut.htm

Good News or Bad? Local Gun Shop Jammed w/ Buyers
http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/6078

Supreme Court To Rule On 2nd Amendment
http://www.washingto..ticle/2008/03/15/AR2008031502358_pf.html

CROSSPOST update on FINLAND and the massacre

This is an excellent precis about what the Finnish massacre is really about and a good look at what is entailed in gun confiscations.

I am NOT a rightwinger if you do not know, but you'll find this of high interest. But I do contend we are ALL being had as the militarization of all criminal justice proceeds.

Incidentally, someone informed me recently that young kids are being permitted to buy TASERS. They think that they are fun to use at parties where people get high and then stun someone. Sigh. I knew that; but the age at which they have acess to them is getting younger and younger. Will someone please BAN these weapons of torture; they are NOT the same as gunz.

Veeger

Inter Arma

Friday 30 Novembere, 2007 by Baron Bodissey

I have long been aware of the Finnish writer and blogger Jussi Halla-aho because of his links to Gates of Vienna. However, since his work was mostly in Finnish, I didn’t know much about him.

He wrote me a couple of days ago to let me know that he had written an article on the recent Jokela school massacre which he subsequently translated into English.

Tundra Tabloids covered the Jokela shootings the day they happened, and here’s a news story about the incident from the November 7th edition of the English-language version of Helsingin Sanomat.

It’s no surprise that Finland, like most other modern Western democracies, responded to the school shootings with a move to crack down on guns. Jussi Halla-aho has his opinions on what is happening; his article is posted below (see the original on his website to find all the hyperlinks).

Inter Arma
by Jussi Halla-aho

In the wake of the Jokela School Shooting I have an urge to say a word or two in defence of guns and gun ownership. Someone may find this tasteless, but I consider it much more tasteless that our fanatically anti-gun press, led by Helsingin Sanomat, is making shameless use of the Jokela massacre to stir up hysteria and push their own goals.

We have seen this happen before in Britain after Dunblane, in Germany after Erfurt, in Australia after Monash University, etc. Following an atrocity the pro-control lobby makes a swift attempt to utilize the understandable panic to achieve their predefined goal, a ban on private gun ownership. They strike immediately, so as not to give people time to cool down and put things in their proper context.

Helsingin Sanomat asks in its reader survey whether there should be a total ban on private gun ownership. (For the current legislative situation, see Wikipedia.) The paper has also, rather artificially one might say, linked the Jokela incident to the on-going dispute between Finland and the EU Comission on the right of minors between 15 and 17 years of age to possess firearms and use them independently for hunting and target shooting.

Let us ponder for a moment on these proposed prohibitions and restrictions. They imply an attack against existing rights (private gun ownership) and private property (privately owned firearms), that is, tough measures from both a juridical and an ethical point of view. Before such steps are taken, at least three questions must be thoroughly considered:

a) Is the proposal feasible? For instance, are the costs of implementation in any proportion to the potential profit?

b) Is the general good obtained in any proportion to the damage caused to the individual?

c) Does the measure address the problem? That is, is it realistic to expect that the measure affects the problem that we wish to solve?

Let us begin with a). What does it mean to ban private gun ownership? Does it mean that 1) the authorities stop issuing new licences now, but those that were issued prior to the ban remain valid; or that 2) the existing licences are revoked and the guns in question are confiscated?

If we choose the option 1), we won’t achieve anything. Somebody who does not know much about guns may not realize it, but firearms do not compare with digital cameras or television sets, which have a very limited service life and break down within ten years from the moment of purchase. Firearms are fairly simple mechanical devices, built from tough materials, whose functional life span, with low levels of use and proper maintenance, may reach hundreds of years. They can be repaired, serviced and even built from scratch with simple hand tools. If gun licences cease to be granted, firearms dealers will be out of business. When that happens, there will be no ammunition available. With no ammunition, the existing guns will be used less and less, which, in turn, decreases their natural wear and thus increases their life-expectancy.

If we opt for 2), we must figure out a procedure for taking away guns from their owners. Confiscating legally acquired and legally kept private property by retroactive legislation is extremely difficult, owing to the general laws protecting private property. What might come in question is the expropriation of the guns against their market value.

Another thing that may be unclear to someone not familiar with guns is that firearms are expensive devices. Huge amounts of money has been invested in them. Their prices vary between 100 Euros and thousands of Euros. At the moment there are some 1,600,000 licenced and privately owned firearms in Finland, of which about 80 per cent are hunting weapons, that is, shotguns and rifles. Let us present a very moderate estimate that the average price of a privately owned gun in Finland is 300 Euros. It is likely to be more.

The mere condemnation awards would cost our government a minimum of 480,000,000 Euros. (The annual state budget is around 30 billion Euros.) Following the expropriation, something would have to be done with one and a half million guns. They could be either stored, destroyed or sold. Selling the guns abroad would hardly be acceptable, given that this would mean just transferring the problem that was supposed to be solved by the expropriation. Storing a million and a half firearms would mean horrible construction and security costs, not to mention the permanent security risk involved. Destroying the guns would likely cost even more. Firearms are not just metal scrap that can be tossed into a melting pot. They consist of heavy metals, light alloys, wood, plastic and various composite materials. They would have to be disassembled manually, one by one.

Where, exactly, would this money come from?

Another possibility, and the one undoubtedly favored by the hoplophobic Left, would be to confiscate the guns without compensations. That would serve those trigger-happy Rambos right! However, the authorities must act within the limits set by the law. The confiscation of legally acquired and kept property without compensations would require wrecking the entire legislation protecting private property. Such a reform would not have a chance of passing the parliamentary process. Why? Because there are guns in more than a half of the Finnish households, and these households consist of people who vote.
- - - - - - - - -
Even if a law enabling the confiscation did pass the legislative apparatus, the guns could not be taken. By becoming a thief the state would lose its legitimacy in the eyes of gunowners. A significant portion of the to-be-confiscated guns would “disappear”. On the eve of the Confiscation the police would file hundreds of thousands of reports on “stolen” and “lost” firearms.

To make it simple and short: There are so many privately owned firearms in Finland that private gun ownership cannot be banned in any meaningful manner. Gunowners can, of course, be succesfully harassed with different measures, but from the point of view of the ultimate goal, a gun-free society, they are meaningless.

The private guns, thus, cannot be confiscated. Let us then move on to the point b): why they should not be confiscated.

If there are a million bathtubs in the country, it is a mathematical inevitability that someone will drown in one. If there are 1600,000 privately owned guns and 700,000 gunowners in the country, it is a mathematical inevitability that sooner or later at least one firearm will find itself in the hands of a criminal or a lunatic. It is clear that by tightening our gun laws we can avoid a certain number of accidents or crimes. It is, indeed, one of the eternal arguments of the pro-control folk that if restriction X prevents even one loss of life, it is worth it. It is difficult to counter this argument because any resistance will provoke hysterical shouting and questions like: “Are you ready to say that to the family members of those who died at Jokela?”

Perhaps I am not. I may also not be ready to advertize the statistical safety of air travel to someone who just lost their family in a plane crash. But punishing 700,000 decent citizens by confiscating their property and ending an activity that is important to them, because of a small handful of bad apples, is not proportionate. Any number of crimes is too many, but even so the damage done to decent citizens must be proportionate to the profit achievable. It may be prudent to approach this thing with parallels that excite people less than firearms which, to many, represent a mythical evil.

According to statistics, males between 18 and 25 years of age are overrepresented in traffic accidents. The number of traffic accidents could be significantly reduced by banning all unnecessary driving from this group of people. Why are we not ready to do this? Because only a small fraction of all males between 18 and 25 are responsible for the ugly statistical truth. The punishment would be collective and unfair, despite the fact that any number of children killed in traffic accidents is too many.

Most physical assaults take place at night in city centers, and most perpetrators are males between 20 and 35. The number of assaults would decrease significantly if a night curfew were imposed on the said group of males. Why are we not ready to do this? Because we would be mostly punishing innocent people. The profit would not be in a just proportion to the harm inflicted, despite the fact that any number of assaults is too many.

What about alcohol? Nothing kills more Finns than alcohol does. It destroys more families than anything else. It kills and cripples indirectly more than anything else, because it is involved in nearly all violent crime. It burdens the public health services more than anything else does. Why do we not prohibit alcohol? So much at least can be said in defence of guns and gun sports that shooting is an instructive hobby which also keeps most of its devotees out of mischief. Is drinking an instructive hobby? Are the damages caused by alcohol a tolerable price for its more wholesome effects? Is not every alcohol-related death, crime or accident one too many? Why not? Are you ready to say that to a person randomly stabbed by a drunk, or to a child of an alcoholic?

There is no coherent answer to the question concerning alcohol. Most people simply content themselves with the truth that alcohol is part of our Finnish culture. But so is private gun ownership. It has a longer continuous history in our country than alcohol has.

By forbidding hunting from minors between 15 and 17 we can possibly prevent one suicide in every two years. But at the same time, we shall deprive thousands of young people in remote districts of a healthy and perhaps the only leisure-time activity. Will they be better off drinking beer in their friends’ garages or playing war games on the Internet? Raising the minimum age for obtaining a gun licence to 20 years, as some have suggested, could have prevented the Jokela tragedy but it would not have prevented the recent shooting in Heikinlaakso (a district in Helsinki) or any other shooting of the past. A higher minimum age would be justified if teenagers between 15 and 19 years were a statistical hazard. But they are not. Pekka-Eric Auvinen was an isolated, unique case.

Banning all guns from everyone might prevent a unique crime. It probably would have prevented the Jokela massacre. But on the whole it would not lessen violent crime because nearly all violent crimes in Finland are committed with weapons other than firearms. It would not even decrease the number of gun crimes significantly because the majority of gun crimes are committed with illegal guns. By tightening gun laws we can only affect those who seek to abide the law.

In the wake of Jokela, we should not get stuck in a debate over guns. A SIG Sauer Mosquito or the Finnish gun law did not kill nine persons. Pekka-Eric Auvinen did. The gun did not make Auvinen kill. He acquired the gun in order to kill. There are, as I see, two reasons why we are talking about the instrument rather than the killer. The first one is that despite their apparent anti-American stance the Finnish (and European) Left adopt their doctrine, methods and agenda as such and predigested from the American Left. In the US, guns are a hot topic because lots of people over there are killed with guns, yet in America, too, the typical way to react is to harass the legal owners of legal guns, disregarding the fact that most gun crimes are committed with illegal and illegally owned ones. Cities and states that are characterized by gun laws significantly stricter than ours, such as Washington DC or Illinois, are black spots of gun crime, while many jurisdictions where gun ownership is not severely regulated, eg. Vermont and Alaska [and Virginia — BB], are among the safest. Gun crime in the US has to do with social and ethnic problems, not with gun laws or the availability of legal guns.

Since there is a gun problem in the US, the Finnish “progressives”, subservient to the American Left, have decided that we, too, must have a gun problem. In reality we have none. We have more guns per capita than any other European country but less gun crime than any other European country. The fact that there is a lot of violent crime in Finland is irrelevant because these crimes, as a rule, are not committed with guns.

The fact that we do not have a demonstrable gun problem disturbs our “progressives” in a terrible manner. For years they have been dying for something like Jokela to happen. So that they can yell triumphantly: “We told you, didn’t we!” This is their great moment. Like vultures they are feeding on the corpses of those who died at Jokela. As a gunowner I find that annoying. As a human being I find it repulsive.

Another reason for talking about guns, rather than the killer, is that guns and gunowners are an easy target to pour out your anger, hatred and frustration on. Similarly easy targets are computer games or heavy metal music. It is much more difficult and much less trendy to touch upon problems such as school bullying (according to the police investigations, Auvinen was bullied) because anti-gun people are also people who always view an evil-doer as a victim. It is much more difficult to talk about the catastrophic state of our public mental health care and school health services (according to the investigations Auvinen was suffering from mental problems). It is easy to take money from the mental patients because, on the one hand, they do not demand their rights and, on the other, the results of neglecting them show with a delay. A politician who only worries about the next elections is not interested in issues that have little immediate visible effects on anything, regardless of how severe the long-term impact on society will be.

In spite of what happened at Jokela, we do not have a gun problem. We do have other problems, but addressing them would require money and political will. Bringing knives or firearms into schools could be made more difficult by using guards or metal detectors, but such measures are a no-no to the self-proclaimed intellectuals because they would be “simplifying the problem” or something like that. The authorities that grant firearms licences should have an access to the mental record of the applicant, but this is a big no too because these intellectuals resent some, selected aspects of a police state. The licence authorities should be properly trained and instructed. Auvinen obtained his permit by virtue of having joined a Helsinki shooting club a few months before but without having visited the range even once. The law authorizes the police to consider whether the applicant has demonstrated his shooting hobby in a reliable manner. The Tuusula police made a clear mistake, the law itself is not to blame.

A lot of things could be done if there was political will. Even so, we cannot prevent all crimes. For decades the Finnish criminal politics have been based on the idea that the criminal is a victim and the crime is a reaction to influence from the social environment. We have lost our ability to understand that there are people who commit crimes, totally regardless of what the surrounding society does or does not do, because they are inherently stupid, crazy or evil. The world has seen all kinds of societies and legislations, but a crimeless society does not and will not exist. There will always be Auvinens who kill people out of their own will, their own motives, and using those instruments that are available. The society can only determine how, if at all, it wishes to punish them for their actions. It can also determine how, if at all, it allows the potential victims to defend themselves.

Read further... this is quite extensive the comments are well worth the read ..

Amendment II -- the recent developments

Brace yourselves!!

Here is the KICKER - they already control
the ammunition supply.

When you go to the site. Click on "Supreme Court To Hear Gun Case" video. There will be a short commercial and then the video.... NOTE: If this is approved by the courts. All peoples of this country are screwed. This is a Bush plan.

US Constitution:

Amendment 2 - Right to Bear Arms. Ratified 12/15/1791.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

(Well Regulated Militia) "Made up of the people of each state and to hold in their own possession a firearm of their own, not of the gov. Federal or State.".

CBS Evening News with Katie Couric - CBS News Broadcast

With Bob Schieffer.

www.cbsnews.com/sections/eveningnews/main3420.shtml

For lots of information on the 2nd amendment, please go visit Mark Yanonne's site, here:
http://yannone.blogspot.com/search/label/2nd%20Amendme

Followup: Vets, PTSD and the RIGHT to bear arms!!

Veterans Disarmament Act to Bar Vets From Owning Guns

Sat Oct 13, 2007 4:49 pm (PST)

After seeing everything I have seen over the last 49 years of this short life. I now see an even bigger picture that just now has become even clearer to me. This is not about "PTSD" or an thing else other then total control of anyone who will pose a threat to the new government to be put into place in the next year. For those of you that feel this does not affect you. Please think again. It does. The government can place any persons name in the National Data Base for anything. Whether you were ever involved in that issue or not. Data bases are one of the easiest things to make in the Cybernet World. The government can either make you out to be a saint. Or another Saddam Husein, and there isn't anything you can do about it any more. The people of this land have allowed the new government to take total control of us all. Just remember. You fought for their war. And now your getting payed back. You are here today. But you could wake up one morning and not be alive or even existed as far as the government is concerned.
Posted by Kirk

Veterans Disarmament Act To Bar Vets From Owning Guns

Larry Pratt

Sunday September 23, 2007
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((1)©(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 ­for life ­ 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"

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."

NOTE: It’s passed Congress and is moving on to the Senate…….my opinion is that it’s not about vets with PTSD – it’s about veterans who are warriors and know how to fight in wars…trained by the USA – well, Baby Bush and his buddies who have pulled a lot of rotten deals since day 1 – want to make darn sure these vets are not able to come back at them when everyone does finally realize that so many of our freedoms have already been taken from us – and there will be more. These vets are a threat. If we are to ever stand up like the true patriots so many of us claim to be and take our country back and give back what was stolen from the Constitution – these vets are a threat. Arm yourselves – everyone – because like it or not, I hate to say this and I hope I am totally wrong, but a revolution will happen, because when we hit solid rock bottom while the rich have become so rich they could never spend it all – we will have to fight for our country and for our rights and freedoms.

This man – I won’t call him President, because we know he stole the election - denies little children desperately needed medical coverage – denies people decent housing, food, medical care and so forth – but he wants to take guns away from the very vets who he has claimed are dying for our freedoms? Who have died – a river of blood through many wars and conflicts – and this is how they are treated? Judged without the due process? We must do whatever we can to fight this bill.

More:

Vets 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.

Haven't they been through enough already? Many of our Vietnam Vets have fought for years to get help from VA (and are STILL fighting for them). Then to have the mere fact they sought help come back to slap them in the face is further insult to injury!

What stats are Congress basing this bill on? This is a veiled attempt to take away the arms of all Americans and defy our 2nd Amendment rights. Unless a Veteran is a prisoner, he still has his Second Amendment rights! 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.

Not to mention how this will PREVENT our troops returning from theatre from getting help if they are having problems. Can you imagine how ANGRY they will be? (And who wouldn't be? We were when we read this! Not to mention how emotional we felt about it too.)

I have a brother with PTSD. He hunts and subsidizes his family with meat because his income has been limited by his VOLUNTARY service, which affected him! What a slap in the face to him and others who were affected by what they encountered while serving all of us. I've never felt he would harm anyone, not ever. We've known a lot of Vietnam Vets with PTSD who we've never felt were a threat to society. Remember the number of Vets we are dealing with. So the stats just aren't there to warrant this!
Not everybody who went to Nam was affected the same way. But we know that some were and we care about them. (Unless you're in Congress evidently!) But this is the most disgusting thing we've ever heard of.
Lets see, you've been changed forever for serving your country, now Congress is going to PUNISH you further? Now that's a big THANK YOU FOR SERVING and that's logic for you...

The troops serving today are so amazing. Doing several tours of duty. We appreciate them so much. So a slap in the face like this is really going to help! Talk about pulling a bandaide off a wound! A HUGE slap in the face when these brave troops have had to fight for every thing they get. We have always needed to encourage troops to go in for counseling if they had a problem. Imagine if they were law enforcement? You're telling them they can never do the job they did before they left to serve our country? Nice job congress!

We've been dealing with Vietnam Vets for how many years? And there is NO HUGE stats for shooting incidents!

So why in the world would you do something like this to our troops?
It's a veiled attempt to take away our Second Amendment rights.. starting with the brave men and women who have been protecting THEIR sorry *sses!

When I called Sen's Boxer's and Feinsteins offices today, they said "yes, it has already passed in the House, and it's coming up for a vote in the Senate".

I told them that there are two Vets in this house. We've never been sorry to have served. One of us is 100 percent disabled, and the other 50% from a helicopter crash in Nam as a medivac pilot. My brother, who has PTSD, has never been sorry to have served, and he also volunteered.

But my brother never came back from Nam. In all these years, the young man who left, never returned. But no one fears him either. And now they want to PUNISH HIM?

This is INSANE!

I asked that they PLEASE advocate for our troops. The troops from before and now too. To do less is a horrible joke.

I even looked up the email I got on Snopes.com. Thinking it had to be a hoax. Surely they couldn't or wouldn't do MORE HARM to the troops who've served and are serving our country so well.

But, it's true.. it's all true.

I admit, during my conversation with both offices, I broke down near the end with each office. This IS EMOTIONAL. How can we allow this to happen to our Vets?

This is just too much for me to imagine. My brother having his rifle taken away. No more Elk or deer to feed his family. No more wild Turkey's to eat. After 30 some years?

What dignity he has left will be shattered. That young man who joined to fight for a country he loved so much.

It shames me to no end to imagine that his country would "continue" to do him harm. (His fight for benefits has been unreal.)

Please call your Senators. Please tell them to prevent this travesty from happening to our troops who've served. They deserve BETTER than this!
God forbid we treat them like common criminals by denying them this RIGHT afforded them by our Constitution!

It took me all of 5 minutes to make these two calls.

Please help to stop this travesty being visited on our nations hero's.
We owe it to them! PLEASE HELP OUR VETS!!!

Contact your State Senator and tell them to vote NO on this bill! You will be calling about the following:
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The Veterans Disarmament Act
HR 2640, section 102 (1)©(iv)

Little RedHawk
Cherokee Warrior