Just we need MORE GUNS in trained unstable killers hands

LATimes

Veterans and gun safety
Legislation to loosen restrictions on buying guns by mentally unstable veterans is misguided.

Reasonable people agree that precautions should be taken to keep psychologically impaired individuals from buying guns. In the enduring debate over gun regulation, this has been one area of consensus. That's why it is difficult to fathom legislation proposed by Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) that would make it more difficult to keep guns out of the hands of veterans who have been deemed mentally incompetent by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Currently, such veterans fail their federal background checks if they attempt to buy a gun. So Burr wants to add another step to the background check: He proposes that the VA's medical diagnoses be subject to the approval of a judge or magistrate. But that's unnecessary; the VA already offers extensive due process to veterans whose mental capabilities are questioned, and the legal presumption is in favor of their competence. In fact, one reason the gun lobby supported the National Instant Criminal Background Check System improvement act was because it had been amended to protect the ability of veterans who have been successfully treated for post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychological conditions to own guns.

Burr has gotten some traction for the bill by cherry-picking from a long list of factors involved in a determination of mental incompetence, such as an inability to manage personal finances, to make the rules sound unreasonable. But a VA doctor doesn't ask for a veteran's checkbook and then rescind the right to bear arms if the columns don't balance. Even the National Rifle Assn. admits the process is more thoughtful than that. A recent article in the NRA's magazine said that VA records are reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System only "if a patient has been adjudicated as a mental defective, a lengthy process that includes opportunities for hearings, appeals, etc."

After the Virginia Tech massacre by a student who had been diagnosed with psychological disorders, the NRA and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence worked together on a bill encouraging states to submit records of the dangerously mentally ill (as well as felons, fugitives and others) to the system. The bill also created a process to help veterans get their gun rights reinstated if they'd been improperly taken away.

Adding another layer of bureaucracy to the process is pure political pandering. About 100,000 veterans are currently deemed unfit to have access to guns, and under Burr's bill, they would automatically be removed from the background check system until judicial review. Treating these veterans fairly is important, but making it easier for them to get firearms should be low on everyone's list of priorities.