Staff Writer, DL Mullan
Second Amendment / Mental Health
______________________________
A federal judge ruled today that Connecticut's new gun laws in reaction to the Sandy Hook massacre were Constitutional.
Alfred V. Covello, Senior United States District Judge for the District of Connecticut, dismissed all three constitutional challenges in his 47-page decision.
"Obviously, the court cannot foretell how successful the legislation will be in preventing crime," Covello wrote. "Nevertheless, for the purposes of the court's inquiry here, Connecticut, in passing the legislation, has drawn reasonable inferences from substantial evidence."
Yes, actually we can foretell the success of the law. Connecticut's gun control laws before Sandy Hook were very strict. That did not stop what happened and neither will this decision to uphold stricter gun control laws.
Let's illustrate this line of thought. The guns that Adam Lanza used were two semiautomatic handguns and a semiautomatic rifle. All three firearms were purchased legally and registered to his mother, Nancy.
- Carrying a gun onto school property is a felony (U.S. Law)
- Connecticut law prohibits anyone under the age of 21 from owning a gun
- Connecticut also has a "safe storage" provision that makes it a crime if a gun is accessible to a minor
- Rifles and shotguns can be purchased without a permit, after a two-week waiting period
- Handguns, on the other hand, require a permit before either purchasing or carrying them
Yet the laws in Adam Lanza,'s case either didn't apply to the 20 year old or he simply ignored them. The guns were legal. So how does more gun laws restrict access to people with the intent on causing harm? It simply doesn't.
If you repeat a specific behavior expecting a different outcome, that's called insanity. Well in societal discourse it may be but the real definition of insanity by the courts is:
Insanity. n. mental illness of such a severe
nature that a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality, cannot conduct her/his affairs due to psychosis, or is subject to uncontrollable
impulsive behavior.
So explain again how more gun control laws are going to stop someone who cannot distinguish fantasy from reality? It can't. Thus the rationale for upholding this law in District Court is speculative at best and against the Second Amendment at worst.
Of course, the battle over Connecticut's new gun control measures will continue:
New York attorney Brian T. Stapleton, who sued on behalf of the gun owners and other plaintiffs, called the decision disappointing.
"This is a long way from over," he said. "We respect Judge Covello, but respectfully disagree with him. An appeal was anticipated in this case. There are findings that we can work with and we are going to do everything we can to get this overturned."
With the mental health of several mass shooters in question, what is our
nation doing to increase mental health care opportunities? Nothing. Instead of helping solve the crisis, we are dismantling our institutions and have been since the 1960's, which has led to the shut down of Mental Health facilities around the nation. Without a pun intended, mental health closures have become an epidemic:
...and the list goes on about Mental Health clinics and hospitals being closed and the patients having nowhere else to turn.
By treating the rest in the least-restrictive settings possible, the thinking went, we would protect the civil liberties of the mentally ill and hasten their recoveries. Surely community life was better for mental health than a cold, unfeeling institution.
But in the decades since, the sickest patients have begun turning up in jails and homeless shelters with a frequency that mirrors that of the late 1800s. “We’re protecting civil liberties at the expense of health and safety,” says Doris A. Fuller, the executive director of the Treatment Advocacy Center, a nonprofit group that lobbies for broader involuntary commitment standards. “Deinstitutionalization has gone way too far.”
What was that Rahm Emanuel quote again: "No crisis should go to waste. You never want a serious crisis to go to waste... Things that we had postponed for too long, that were long-term, are now immediate and must be dealt with. This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before."
A variant on the Problem - Reaction - Solution theorem that governments like to employ to cause the people to restrict their own selves through fear, outrage, and mob rule lawmaking.
Enter the United Nations.
On 2 April 2013, the General Assembly adopted the landmark Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), regulating the international trade in conventional arms, from small arms to battle tanks, combat aircraft and warships. The treaty will foster peace and security by putting a stop to destabilizing arms flows to conflict regions. It will prevent human rights abusers and violators of the law of war from being supplied with arms. And it will help keep warlords, pirates, and gangs from acquiring these deadly tools.
To summarize the United Nations ATT, that means no guns anywhere, held by anyone, but the United Nations' PeaceKeepers. That means you and that means no Second Amendment. That is wrong for our country.
Anyone can easily see where this expectation of "for the common good" rhetoric is going, can't you?
A government wants to disarm it's people without bloodshed, the criminally insane are let loose on the public because there is no place for them to receive mental health care, supposed gun crimes increase, and then the U.N. enters the scene to solve this issue by taking everyone's rights away.
Just in case you believe gun violence is a paramount problem and out of control in this country, let's review the facts. According to the FBI, the homicides committed in the United States are as follows:
| Total |
14,965 |
15,087 |
14,916 |
14,224 |
13,636 |
| Total firearms: |
10,158 |
10,225 |
10,129 |
9,528 |
9,146 |
| Handguns |
7,565 |
7,836 |
7,398 |
6,800 |
6,452 |
| Rifles |
445 |
438 |
453 |
380 |
348 |
| Shotguns |
522 |
490 |
457 |
442 |
418 |
| Other guns |
138 |
107 |
116 |
81 |
94 |
| Firearms, type not stated |
1,488 |
1,354 |
1,705 |
1,825 |
1,834 |
| Knives or cutting instruments |
1,920 |
1,830 |
1,817 |
1,888 |
1,825 |
| Blunt objects (clubs, hammers, etc.) |
608 |
618 |
647 |
603 |
611 |
| Personal weapons (hands, fists, feet, etc.)1 |
905 |
841 |
869 |
875 |
801 |
| Poison |
9 |
12 |
10 |
9 |
6 |
| Explosives |
2 |
1 |
1 |
11 |
2 |
| Fire |
125 |
117 |
131 |
85 |
99 |
| Narcotics |
46 |
48 |
52 |
34 |
45 |
| Drowning |
20 |
12 |
12 |
16 |
8 |
| Strangulation |
118 |
137 |
134 |
89 |
121 |
| Asphyxiation |
96 |
106 |
109 |
87 |
77 |
| Other weapons or weapons not stated |
958 |
1,140 |
1,005 |
999 |
895 |
So a little over 13K deaths a year from murder, 6K of those are committed with handguns. Sad statistics but true ones. You know what other statistics about death are available? The CDC's Death and Mortality index:
- Heart disease: 597,689
- Cancer: 574,743
- Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 138,080
- Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 129,476
- Accidents (unintentional injuries): 120,859
- Alzheimer's disease: 83,494
- Diabetes: 69,071
- Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 50,476
- Influenza and Pneumonia: 50,097
- Intentional self-harm (suicide): 38,364
Let's balance these statistics with the population of the United States from the Census Bureau:
|
USA |
|---|
Population, 2013 estimate | 316,128,839 |
|
Population, 2012 estimate | 313,873,685 |
|
Population, 2010 (April 1) estimates base | 308,747,716 |
So in the grand scheme of things, murder in America accounts for 13,636 deaths, 9,146 were from firearms of some kind (2009 statistic) but heart disease: kills 597,689 people a year because of our poisoned food, air, and water as well as our bad health care system that relies on symptom control drugs instead of natural and attainable cures.
One last statistic to leave you with: how many guns are legally owned in the United States?
Gun Ownership Statistics & Demographics has percentages, but the actual number is 270 to 300 million.
Isn't our murder problem with guns just beyond logic? If hundreds of millions of guns are in the hands of law abiding citizens and less than ten thousand people are murdered by guns, then we have a huge problem, don't you think? In this paragraph the problem is sarcasm. In the real world, it's called over dramatization. You can thank mainstream media for that.
The media plays up the sensationalism of murders and mass murders in this country like no other source except the White House. As well don't forget the reality of violence that mainstream media doesn't tell you:
Violence Is A Learned Behavior, Say Researchers At Wake Forest University:
The strong association between exposure to violence and the use of violence by young adolescents illustrates that violence is a learned behavior, according to a new study, published by researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and included in the November issue of the Journal of Pediatrics.
You
never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an
opportunity to do things you think you could not do before
Read more at
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/rahmemanue409199.html#PuIxqT5rgyoKSVYW.99
You
never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an
opportunity to do things you think you could not do before
Read more at
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/rahmemanue409199.html#PuIxqT5rgyoKSVYW.99
You
never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an
opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.
Read more at
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/rahmemanue409199.html#PuIxqT5rgyoKSVYW.99
You
never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an
opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.
Read more at
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/rahmemanue409199.html#PuIxqT5rgyoKSVYW.99
Source:
The Courant,
PolicyMic,
United States District Court District of Connecticut,
CGA CT GOV,
Politics Daily,
ABC News,
UNODA,
FBI,
CDC,
US Census Bureau,
Huffington Post,
