Gun Control 2.0 In California…And America!

Bloomberg reports that in California, they are seizing guns from formerly legal gun owners who no longer qualify to own them because of criminal charges or commitment to a mental hospital.  Taking guns from criminals? Good.  Taking guns from the mentally ill and unstable?  Also good, since they make up 99.9% of those who have committed mass murder with guns in the United States.  But with a government that is pushing for increasing measures to disarm citizens and Obamacare in control of medicine, how long before the sane gun-owning citizens are deemed mentally unstable in the name of gun control?

According to the article, Lynette Phillips was the subject of such a gun seizure due to a two-day involuntary commitment to a mental hospital.  The alarming part is her assertion that “the nurse who admitted her had exaggerated the magnitude of her condition.”  Now, we don’t know the circumstances, why she was thought to be crazy, or what behavior made the nurse think Phillips should be committed.  And of course, the crazy don’t think they’re crazy.  If one is involuntarily committed, one has an opportunity to contest the decision before a judge; but it is permanently on the record.  But this raises an important question because judgments on another person’s sanity are made by individuals – fallible, subjective humans.  Those individuals make a determination nearly impossible to disprove that now affects one’s Constitutional right to own a firearm.

Under Obamacare, doctors, nurses, and other medical staff are no longer beholden to their patients; they are beholden to the State.  It holds the taxpayer-funded purse that allocates budgets, and it controls the standards and directives by which medical staff and facilities must operate.  If doctors and nurses answer to the State, and the State wants to enact gun control, what’s to stop them from dictating judgments of insanity for those they want to disarm?  A doctor’s job or a hospital’s budget might depend on compliance with, for example, a new directive on what behavior indicates insanity or potential future violence.  Do you oppose this Administration’s policies?  You may be hostile.  You may be a danger to yourself or others.  The Administration certainly thinks so, and now they write the doctor’s checks.

The idea of a doctor asking a patient the question “Are there any guns in your house?” was raised after the Sandy Hook massacre, when Obama proposed 23 executive orders to limit the use of guns.  Of these, order #16 states, “…the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes”; and according to the White House fact sheet on the orders, “…no federal law prevents health care providers from warning law enforcement authorities about threats of violence.”  Obama wants doctors to be able to get information on the firearms one owns; and under Obamacare, he also controls the staff who diagnose things like mental stability and illness.

We know that gun ownership and conservative values overlap heavily across the United States.  With the help and compliance of the mass media, this Administration has tried to defame and marginalize anyone who opposes its policies and doesn’t agree with its ideology. We also know whom the government deems to be a threat – the new Enemy of the People.  It’s not Islamic terrorists who scream “Allahu Akhbar” as they murder innocent civilians. Those are the justified “freedom fighters” of the “religion of peace.”  Janet Napolitano’s Department of Homeland “Security” has said that all returning Veterans are potential terrorists and that those who are against aborting babies are extremists. And we all know how they characterize the Tea Party in particular and conservatives in general.  Now they have ubiquitous control over the medical staff to dole out judgments of insanity.  What better way to further nullify your enemy than to declare them crazy – one gun-clinger at a time?

Photo credit: krazydad / jbum (Creative Commons)