Sanity and firearms

Opinion by Allan McNew

In the wake of the shootings in Gilroy, El Paso and Dayton, there is a large push towards legislation for background checks to keep firearms out of the hands of the mentally ill.

On one hand, that’s a “no brainer.” On the other what is the potential for bureaucratic abuse of one sort or another? It is blindly obvious when a homeless person is having an argument with someone no one else can see, but otherwise who decides whether someone is a genuine danger to the public? Most true believers in the secular religion of the left sincerely believe the autocratic approach to those with whom they disagree is in the genuine betterment of society, do those who believe in fewer taxes and less governmental dictates suffer from some degree of insanity? What about the merely eccentric among us?

The media got their far left bias from universities packed with communist professors, where do mental health professionals receive their education? Are they any less susceptible to political bias than anyone else?

The Gulag wasn’t the only destination for dissenters in Stalin’s Soviet Union. Mental hospitals were packed full of those who were not fully compatible with the socialist “worker’s paradise.” I understand that in California if someone seeks help for depression, any firearms the afflicted may have will be swiftly confiscated under the state’s red flag law. Will this approach deter those who recognize they need help from obtaining it?

Why aren’t societal changes since the 1960s addressed? The collapse of the American family and the sheer number of children who grow up without a stable father figure in the home? How is it the left rails non stop about gender pronouns, yet says nothing about the plethora of blood soaked video games children play all day long?

And, the nature of prohibition. California is trying to get around the second amendment by incrementally making it impossible to legally buy and possess ammunition. However, depending on time of day, nearly any black market firearm one could want short of an M2 50 cal, along with a thousand rounds of ammunition can be obtained within 24 hours not more than twenty miles from my home. All it takes is a contact and a wheelbarrow full of cash with an understanding of what one is getting into with whomever they are dealing with – it may be illegal, but there are some very serious rules and conditions with not much tolerance for learning curves.

When it comes to money, the left is no more immune to greed than anyone on the right. California legislator Leland Yee, a vociferous sponsor of anti-gun legislation, was convicted of arms trafficking, among other things, and was subsequently sentenced to 5 years in prison. It seems he was trying to finance a re-election bid.