This morning’s Washington Post has an editorial blasting the National Rifle Association (gee, that’s never happened before) for pushing legislation that would tighten down on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and how the agency regulates firearms dealers.
Buried deep in the editorial is this remark (which is so typical of anti-gun editorials in East Coast metropolitan newspapers, plus the Seattle Times on occasion): “These provisions are so alarming that even the Obama administration -- long AWOL on sensible and much needed gun regulations -- has raised concerns.”
“Sensible and much needed gun regulations,” eh? Perhaps the Post means regulations like the one now stripping a decorated Iraq war veteran (he got the Purple Heart) of his Second Amendment rights because, like so many veterans, Sgt. Wayne Irelan of Arkansas suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. His wife, Lana, handles family financial affairs.
That’s a scenario that might be common in the Puget Sound area, where tens of thousands of active duty and retired military personnel reside in a region that is home to Joint Base Lewis-McCord, and Naval facilities at Bangor, Everett and Bremerton. U.S. Senator Patty Murray is running a campaign advertisement showing her support for military veterans, but where is she on this issue?
My colleagues David Codrea (national) and Steve Jones in Fort Smith, AR already touched on this story, but an outrage like this needs as much exposure as possible. Join the military, fight for your country, come home to enjoy the freedoms you defended and suddenly find yourself treated like a criminal, a second-class citizen arbitrarily denied your right to keep and bear arms.
This must be what the Washington Post considers a “sensible” gun regulation; any measure at all to strip one more American citizen of his or her firearm civil rights.
Where is Tacoma Congressman Norm Dicks on this issue? Probably the same place as Murray: In the “F” column, as graded by the NRA because of their consistent anti-gun-rights votes.
Nobody is arguing that there are not specific individual cases involving people who might need serious help, and probably don’t need a firearm, but what has happened to Sgt. Irelan in Arkansas appears to be happening to a lot of people all over the map. It’s a big enough problem that North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr is pushing S. 669, the Veterans’s Second Amendment Protection Act. There is only one Democrat co-sponsor, and it’s not Murray.
This column first discussed the abysmal way veterans with PTSD are treated by the very country they served, and by the government that sent them into harm’s way back on May 28. You can link to that column here. How many of our fathers and grandfathers came home from wars with nightmares and other PTSD-associated problems, yet carried on with their lives, raised families, and, most importantly to guys like my dad, returned to the forests, fields and mountains with rifle and shotgun in hand, to enjoy fall hunting seasons with their kids…people like you and me? Under today’s apparent broad-brush treatment of military vets with PTSD, virtually all of these veterans might have faced losing their gun rights. That's despicable.
Kudos to KFSM News in Fort Smith for lifting the lid on this story last week, and to gun rights activists everywhere who have expressed justifiable moral outrage at Sgt. Irelan’s treatment. See video below.
This is a story likely to hit a very raw nerve in the Puget Sound region. How many veterans right here in the Tacoma-Seattle-Everett-Bremerton region face the same kind of social ostracism and loss of a fundamental civil right because they stepped up to the plate when their nation called?
And here’s a more important question that the Veterans Administration, Dicks, Murray and others in the anti-gun ilk need to answer right now: How many veterans do you think have carefully avoided seeking treatment for PTSD because they are fearful of losing their gun rights?
The bureaucrats who arbitrarily apply this broad brush approach to our combat veterans, especially the ones who dreamed up this idea, ought to be ashamed and never be permitted to work in government again.
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Comments
Dave,
Kudos to you on a truly superb article detailing the insidious machinations of no-name bureaucrats stripping quality people of the rights for which they've shed blood, sweat, and tears for us all.
I know you're busy but could you in your next article or two avail us of where KOMO, KIRO, and KING channels are on this story, since as you so rightly point out, Ft. Lewis and McChord Air Force bases, as well as the heavy (or what used to be heavy as I grew up in Edmonds years ago) Defense Industry in the Puget Sound region, are key components to so many families in the Puget Sound?
I'd also like to know if any of the stations and papers (locals like the Everett Sun, Des Moines paper, etc.) have put this issue in their pages in prominent way?
Murray and Dicks, the leading ne'er do wells from a 2A point of view MUST be confronted with this issue, publicly, loudly, and repeatedly.
I hope that such comes to pass.
Thanks again for a truly quality read.
Cheers.
Russell
It's not about hunting, Dave...
I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that part of the U.S. Constitution which affords either the United States or any of the several states the authority to either make or enforce such as law as they have seen fit to enact.
Additionally, in =no part= of the 14th Article of Amendment is there is =any= authority given to either the United States or any of the several states the power to create a class of citizens possessing of few rights than the rest.
In other words, the 14th Art. of Amend. states in no uncertain terms that all shall be accorded equal treatment under the law by due process.
Virtually none of those returning soldiers has been afforded a trial for whatever crime. Their rights then, have been supremely violated for no cause at all.
Dave,
Only a lunatic would argue that individuals who have been certified as unstable should be allowed to possess a gun.
Again and again you gun nuts put an abstraction before common sense, human decency, and public safety.
One day Americans will wake up to the evil, malicious and ultimately irrational nature of the NRA and the gun lobby.
What makes a person a "Gun Nut"? Anyone concerned about their Constitutional Rights? What makes the NRA "evil, malicious and ultimately irrational"? Members are concerned for their Constitutional Rights are "evil, malicious and ultimately irrational"? Hmmm. That makes me wonder about your own ideals and brings into question your morals and value system. I know many professional individuals that are not "Nuts": Judges, attorneys, doctors, engineers, corporate executives, little old ladies that own firearms and are outraged that people such as yourself are for takeing people's Constitutional Rights away. It is not just the Second Amendment that is at stake, but ALL rights. Allow even one of our rights be destroyed, and all will fall.
"Again and again you gun nuts put an abstraction before common sense, human decency, and public safety." Tell that to the victims of crimes of murder by violent criminals, not killed by firearms. Recently, here in my city, just across the street from my home, a body was found that had been killed by being beaten with a baseball bat. Had the victim been armed, they may still be alive today. Do you live in a safe suburban neighborhood or gated community? Do you really know what is happening in the world around you? In your own community? Maybe it is time to wake up and look at the real world around you. Stop watching mainstream media. They have their own agendas. But if YOU yourself would watch anyother media and just say that they are nuts as well. Why do your kind preach tolerance, but almost never follow it yourselves?
One last thing. by calling my kind of people "Nuts" is in and of itself an intolerant comment, thereby making yourself "Nuts". Just as the people who always yell "Racism" at every comment are themselves racist by not tolerating a different opinion. You and your kind are what is inherently wrong with this country. I know that IF you read this, you are going to comment on an intellectually impaired level, and I accept that. I truly feel sorry for you.
Dave, I personally know two veterans of Iraq who made it a point to avoid any treatment or counseling because of this issue. One told me that during his tour, with three months left, he was so stressed that he couldn't sleep and his teammates said he looked as though he'd been beaten. But he determined to "tough it out" rather than get a mental treatment record that might later be used to deprive him of 2nd Amendment rights.
Another whom I know was in three separate IED explosions, the last knocking him unconscious for several minutes. He tells me that he regularly receives letters from the VA "reminding" him of appointments to see a VA shrink, appointments he's never made and has no intention of keeping. He, also, would rather take his chances foregoing treatment than risk a loss of rights by seeking treatment. This should not be the way we treat the heroes who go in harms way for our sake.
What's the WaPo know. Sensible gun control means a steady breathing, steady hand, a good aim, and a slow trigger squeeze with the sights constantly on target. That's the only sensible gun control. Don't control guns, control criminals. "How?" you say. Longer sentences for using a firearm in the commission of a crime, and by longer i mean 10 years, or more, for robbery, and life for murder, which would mean two life sentences if your convicted of the murder, and the gun possession charge. You shouldn't ever be getting out of jail anyway if you murdered someone, at least not in anything but a pine box.
We've dug our own grave by listening to pro-gunners who wish to get along, compromise a little. What can it hurt. Now, NRA, one of these, wants to get tough? Well, better late than never. BTW, all those years spent getting us PP's, was for naught. Now they can be used to know who ha guns, and confiscate when the time's right. Would have been better off using the law, and civil rights cases, to press the advantage while it was fresh in the justices minds. Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham from Staub v. Baxley: permits for rights are unconstitutional censorships, or prior restraints. Murdock v. PA, Paying for a right makes it a privilege.
Of course, you could rely on Walker v. Birmingham which states we don;t need to press our case to the SCOTUS to do what is rightful. if we do, then the state is in the wrong, and they should pay big time for their scoffing at the Constitution.
"How many veterans ... loss of a fundamental civil right because they stepped up to the plate when their nation called?"
Flip this question over. How many kids will say "Hmmm. Join the Army, go fight the Halliburton Wars, come home and be a second-class citizen... No, thanks."
You know what Dave? The Washington Post is known for there Conservative slant!
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