UPDATE: HB 77 is NOT dead. Click here to read more.
The NM House Judiciary Committee heard testimony from citizens both for and against Rep. Miguel Garcia's gun control bill, HB 77, which would heavily regulate private transfers of firearms. Rio Rancho's own freshman representative, Paul Pacheco, serves on the House Judiciary committee. He assured me that he would be voting not to let the bill out of committee. If HB 77 does manage to get passed out of committee, it will have to go through the House Appropriations and Finance Committee before going to the House floor for a vote.
I got my political debut on KOB last night thanks to Stuart Dyson, but as the news goes, they picked the lamest part of my interview to air on television. What you didn't hear, and what I unfortunately didn't have the chance to say to the committee, were my actual arguments against the bill.
Here's what you didn't get to hear:
Increasing background checks is an erroneous method at determining who might be inclined to use a firearm to commit murder or suicide. According to the FBI, the current background check only prohibits those persons who have been involuntarily admitted to mental hospital from passing the background check. But there have been many calls to broaden the mental illness part of the background check to prohibit more people with mental illness from purchasing firearms. But there's a problem with this.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (also known as DSM-5) is currently being updated to categorize normal behaviors like shyness, grief, and eccentricity as mental illness – will eccentric people eventually not be allowed to carry guns because they've been deemed as having a mental illness?
Furthermore, at the 2006 American Psychiatric Association (see video above left) Convention psychiatrists openly admitted that they have no scientific tests to prove mental disorders are illness or disease, and that psychiatric drugs do not cure anyone. The APA and DSM have provided no scientific data, no medical test to support their theory of chemical imbalances in the brain, nor offer an diagnostic testing to ensure they are correctly diagnosing a patient.
Why do our governing officials insist on depending upon what is at best soft science in determining who gets to exercise their right to carry a gun?
Harvard Law actually did a study on the question of whether or not gun control laws reduce murder, suicide, and other violent crimes.
The Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy determined that the gun control lobby has no basis for their claims. Here is an example as applied: HB 77 seeks to restrict ALL private transfers of firearms, force people to pay a fee with their private transfer, and seeks to create a registry of public and private sales. Practically speaking how will this be enforced? I suppose people seeking to privately transfer firearms for the purpose of robberies, murders, suicides, and rapes will have to be on the honor code to follow this one.
People who have reconciled themselves to commit a crime have also reconciled themselves to break the various laws designed to deter them. If laws were intended to curb bad behavior then “Thou Shalt Not Murder” would have been sufficient.
In the concluding paragraph to this Harvard study, Professor Brandon Centerwall writes,
“If you are surprised by our findings, so are we. We did not begin this research with any intent to “exonerate” handguns, but there it is – a negative finding, to be sure, but a negative finding is nevertheless a positive contribution. It directs us where not to aim public resources.” (emphasis added)
Our state representatives should be seeking proven solutions to problems relating to violent crime, rather seeking dis-proven solutions that have no hope of preventing crime.
Finally, we've all heard the 2nd Amendment, but few remember the Preamble to the Bill of Rights, which reads:
The Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added:
Our governing officials have sworn an oath to support the Constitution of the United of the States. Their job is not to determine which rights citizens need - that's our job. Their job is to ensure that we can freely practice our rights.
HB 77 is not only a scientifically dis-proven piece of legislation, but it supports soft science and enables our representatives to violate their oath of office.
Be advised! Thomas Jefferson said that, “Whevensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.”
ENACTING RESTRICTIONS ON THE 2ND AMENDMENT IS AN UNDELEGATED POWER!
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