imported post
OK. I'll stand up and be counted, Doug.
Just from the sound of your rant, you haven't read the bill, or if you have, you don't understand what it's doing. Either way, you are simply buying into the GOA's paranoia.
#1. It narrows the defnition of what is to be considered a mental disability.
#2. It requires the States to form some sort of board, commission or court procedure by which the disability may be removed. How the States decide to do this, not the feds, is the manner by which the disability may be removed.
#3. Once the disability has been removed, your name must then be taken out of the NICS database... Your right to have firearms is restored.
#4. If you are denied, you may then petition the federal court for a review. The court is then required to review "de novo." That means it is to look at all of the evidence, and decide for itself if the disability may be removed. This is the only time the feds are involved in the process.
#5. It specifically prohibits the DOJ from charging anything for a NICS check.
#6. It provides to the States, funds to update their own databases and to transmit the data to NICS.
#7. The feds are prohibited from using the data for anything other than the NICS.
Contrary to what the GOA is saying, this is a step in the right direction.
Under the current law, if you have been adjudicated as a mental case, your name is on the NICS forever. You have no way to get it off.
If you are one of the 87,000 veterans who had contact with the VA and were treated at a VA center for PTSD, you are a prohibited person. Many of these vets own guns and don't even know they are prohibited. It won't show up unless they try to buy a gun through an FFL. Amazingly enough, vets who were treated for PTSD through a VA "outreach center," were not reported. Only those who were treated at a VA hospital itself.
AAR, if this bill passes the senate and gets signed into law, there will be a way to get your name off the prohibited persons list (NICS database).
It opens the door for others, non-violent felons or those snagged by Lautenberg, to eventually get their names removed.
Can't do that now, as the method for doing so has been defunded (thanks Chuckie :cuss
But, after a couple of years and things work well, this same approach (giving back to the States, power stolen by the Feds) can be used on other "prohibited persons."
So what is not to like about this bill?