U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “Washington State Debuts Unique Tool to Reduce Gun Suicides,” a Tuesday “report” from The Trace claims. “An innovative prevention measure gives people the power to suspend their own gun rights.”
Before we go further, a word about the source is in order. While it’s true that ad hominem arguments are logical fallacies, what’s also true is that – their protests of editorial independence notwithstanding – The Trace was funded with seed money from Michael Bloomberg and exists for the purpose of discouraging private gun ownership. Simply put, the biased venture reeks of personally motivated gun-grab agendas.
Personal motivation is what’s behind this latest bright idea. It’s the brainchild of a self-described bipolar law professor who has struggled with depression and thoughts of suicide. The basic idea is to put yourself on a “no buy” list to prevent impulse purchases. If you feel better a week later, you can take yourself off and the record of the waiver must be destroyed.
That seems a hell of a loophole, and presumes a lot more is understood about mental health than actually is. And it’s all based on self-diagnosis by someone in severe emotional distress, whose at-the-moment presence of mind is the sole determinant of reliable judgment.
There are so many other variables that make this “bipartisan” law ludicrous, such as what happens if someone already owns guns (what, no provision for confiscation?), or if pills, rope and bridge alternatives are available, but let’s just focus on one truism: Anyone who can’t be trusted with a gun can’t be trusted without a custodian. To deny that is to invite disaster.
If you believe you’re going to kill yourself – by any means – you seriously need intervention and treatment. If certifying to the authorities that you can’t be trusted with a gun because you fear you’ll blow your brains out isn’t cause for an observation commitment, what is?
To take it all back in a week and expect everybody to act as if nothing happened is just nuts. Worse, it makes it appear something is being done at the very time real help is needed most.
So naturally, the Bloombergians at The Trace, being unique tools of the disarmers, are presenting this as exciting and new, and something that will make an appreciable difference while being voluntary (for now). Promises that “The waivers are designed to be confidential, and can’t be used in legal proceedings, or as a condition of employment or mental health treatment” are hardly compelling. Don’t be surprised if that part of the law gets overturned if used to initiate “red flag” confiscations, or if a third party gets hurt and the fact of the waiver is introduced in a civil suit (particularly if it involves jurisdiction matters in another state).
People are free to have reasons of their own not to want to buy a gun, and the answer is simple and voluntary, without a need to invoke the state:
Don’t buy one.
But when disturbed people say they don’t trust themselves to make their own purchasing decisions based on potential lethal consequences and need the state to intervene, that just screams “mental incompetence.” Hell, needing help with a fiduciary trustee has already been used as “justification” for disarming veterans as “mental defectives.”
This is really just another opportunity for the antis to further blame guns for social ills, and to make it look like those who don’t want you to own them are interested in beneficial, voluntary measures. They’re not.
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.