The shooting of Congress woman Gabby Giffords has brought the topic of gun rights and gun control into the mainstream conversations like no other incident in modern memory. A political and philosophical debate is now raging in Washingtonian social circles the likes of which are hard to imagine. If Americans have a constitutional right to bear arms, then can the government rightfully deny a mentally ill person who has not been legally reprimanded to state custody the right to buy a weapon? What is the legal boundary that determines whether or not a person — and American citizen — is legally competent and safely withing his or her right to own a firearm? Should President Barack Obama start gun grabbing from any person the government feels might be mentally challenged — and if so, who defines the limits?
The Wall Street Journal writes,
The Arizona shooting in which six people were killed by a gunman targeting a member of Congress has thrust a spotlight on how difficult it is for most states in the U.S. to keep handguns away from people struggling with mental-health issues. Since 1968, federal law has prohibited the sale of guns to anyone deemed mentally unfit. But first, a court has to decide someone is unfit—a very high standard. Even in cases where gun purchasers are deemed mentally unfit, they can still legally buy a gun from a private seller, because no background check is required at all.
In the case of suspected killer Jared Lee Loughner, he would have faced few obstacles in buying a gun in Arizona, which already has some the most lax gun laws in the country. Campus police at a community college previously had been notified of Mr. Loughner’s disruptive behavior during classes. But he had not been under any court-ordered treatment. His records wouldn’t have been submitted into the system.
What could have been handled differently in his case, and how can gun laws be modified to prevent such tragedies?
While Gabby Giffords shooter — we all agree — must have some sort of moral deficiency to have so brutally assaulted 19 people, in essence executing six, there are new facts coming to light that he may not have truly been mentally incompetent. The picture of Loughner emerging is one that shows a troubled young man who wanted to be famous and staged his own “insanity” defense deliberately, intelligently, and with full knowledge that the harm he was about to do was morally wrong.
Lougher — by not being crazy — creates legally and philosophically — one type of political debate about access to fully automatic high powered and semi-automatic hand guns in and of themselves, as no good seems to come from owning such weapons (to either man or animal).
A crazy Loghner creates an entirely new type do political debate and cultural discourse in America, one that revolves around an American’s right to bear arms and how to define whether or not a person is criminally insane or mentally incompetent.
What are YOUR thoughts about gun rights? Should new Obama gun grabbing laws be put into place to protect the general public from danger? Sound off in the comments section below.
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