New York takes guns away from 34,500 without due process

Why should this little reported story concern us? Once again it is about Due Process. Yes, that nasty part of the Constitution that Progressives find so annoying in implementing their agenda. Should guns be kept away from the mentally ill? The standard up to now has been someone who has been committed involuntarily to a mental institution and is a danger to himself or others. Now, all we need is to have someone report you and you can lose your Second Amendment rights with no way out. It is the usual slippery slope that we begin. Hot air has the full screed, but this will get you started.

The NY Times has now released details of a database kept by Empire State law enforcement of people who have had their Second Amendment rights terminated on the basis of being “mentally unstable.” The number of people in this database – created as a result of the odious New York SAFE Act – has swollen in a little over a year to more than 34,000 names.

For the vast majority of the people on this huge list, they have never had a day in court to challenge their accusers as to their fitness to exercise their Second Amendment rights, nor have they been adjudicated as being truly dangerous. In New York you can show up on this list and lose your rights simply because some anonymous “medical professional” (who doesn’t even have to be a doctor) has reported you. A newly created database of New Yorkers deemed too mentally unstable to carry firearms has grown to roughly 34,500 names, a previously undisclosed figure that has raised concerns among some mental health advocates that too many people have been categorized as dangerous.

The database, established in the aftermath of the mass shooting in 2012 at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and maintained by the state Division of Criminal Justice Services, is the result of the Safe Act. It is an expansive package of gun control measures pushed through by the administration of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. The law, better known for its ban on assault weapons, compels licensed mental health professionals in New York to report to the authorities any patient “likely to engage in conduct that would result in serious harm to self or others.”

This should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Andrew Cuomo and the New York Democrat party. Efforts to get this blatantly unconstitutional law overturned in the courts have thus far failed, but this revelation should add new fuel to the fire and inspire people to redouble their efforts.

More over at Hot Air

Update: This may be of interest: Obama to tighten Gun Control for those who ever took an anxiety pill? January 6, 2014

Filed under: Gun Control Tagged: Gun Control, mental-health, New York, Safe Act, Second amendment, Second Amendment rights