President Donald Trump quietly signed a bill into law Tuesday rolling back an Obama-era regulation that made it harder for people with mental illnesses to purchase a gun.
The rule, which was finalized in December, added people receiving Social Security checks for mental illnesses and people deemed unfit to handle their own financial affairs to the national background check database.
Had the rule fully taken effect, the Obama administration predicted it would have added about 75,000 names to that database.
President Barack Obama recommended the now-nullified regulation in a 2013 memo following the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, which left 20 first graders and six others dead. The measure sought to block some people with severe mental health problems from buying guns.
The original rule was hotly contested by gun rights advocates who said it infringed on Americans' Second Amendment rights. Gun control advocates, however, praised the rule for curbing the availability of firearms to those who may not use them with the right intentions.
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10 comments:
Now we just need to get these people armed and close to Hillary, Nancy and Chuck to start out. Then on to the Liberal Judges and other Hollywood nuts.
Your a typical violent liberal.
background checks = gun control.
Shall Not Be Infringed.
Tread carefully that isn't funny
I'm a gun owner but can agree that criminals and mentally I'll shouldn't have guns. Sorry but that's not an issue for me. Why do gun owners protect people who cannot responsibly handle them? I do own and hunt
I don't think George and Tom thought about mentally deranged people when creating the BOR
The issue I see isn't the true mentally incompetent. It's the mass that are labeled mentally ill only because of something minor that everyone goes through at some point in there life. Like a bout of depression and said person asked for some help to get over it because that is what we have been told to do. It happens more often then you would think.
Mentally Ill is a pretty broad term, we all get that. Why in the world would you want to make it easier for someone with any history of mental illness to purchase a firearm? If it stops one shooting it was worth it.
Anonymous Anonymous said...
I'm a gun owner but can agree that criminals and mentally I'll shouldn't have guns. Sorry but that's not an issue for me. Why do gun owners protect people who cannot responsibly handle them? I do own and hunt
March 3, 2017 at 7:33 AM
It's not just criminals and mentally ill that are banned from owning firearms. Felonies do not have to be one of violence. They have people hoodwinked that banning felons from ownership, doing background checks, etc. will keep guns out of the hands who they think should not have them. We all know this does not work.
Someone who goes for a joyride in a car that is not theirs, a less than honorable discharge, an incident of domestic abuse, been diagnosed as an alcoholic, in possession of a certain fish, etc.
I could go on all day listing felonies which are not violent and most do not even know they exist. Nobody is born a felon. Background checks on look at the history of someone, it can't predict when a so called law abiding citizen decides to commit a felony, knowingly or not.
It is about gun control and it started in 1934 at the federal level, states started in 1925. They were after tommy guns and semi autos then. Over the years they expanded on it to include felons and the rest of these restrictions.
These laws were passed because of organized crime at the time when many were in fear of their lives. Those reasons have gone away and our rights should be restored so we can protect the weak, poor and elderly against the thugs we have now.
No one should have a lifetime sentence because they made a mistake when they were young, got out of the military for whatever reason or had a fish he wasn't supposed to have.
These laws today serve no purpose other than having the ability to charge someone with a crime, get them into the system and make money off of their misfortune. Money is behind every decision gov't makes and this one is no different. It certainly does not make us safer since criminals do not obey the laws anyway nor does it stop anyone from obtaining any firearm.
If the Federal Govt. is making the determination of who is mentally ill or mentally unfit to own a gun then the definition in itself will be a very broad swath and could potentially include anyone who literally cried. All human beings have weak points and some have more than others. Some humans just simply have issues and it should be a trained professional who makes the decision; maybe even a board of trained professionals, not a bureaucrat.
Unfortunately, you cannot stop all people from performing nefarious acts on others or to themselves but this is what it means to be living in a free society. You take the good with the bad.
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