The Future of Gun Rights

[rc]

Here is a vet who was charged with a misdemenor for punching a guy in the nose in 1968 who had previously attacked him. He's been a gun owner for all this time with no other convictions. Now the ATF says he can't own a gun.

http://news.yahoo.com/video/veteran-...XBhZ2U-;_ylv=3


Our Civial Rights are under fire. Don't believe the rhetoric that lawmakers support the second amendment and just want reasonable gun control.

[brokenhand]

Feinstein: Veterans



At a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting on Thursday, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) opposed an amendment to her Assault Weapons Ban legislation that would allow military veterans to continue to buy the firearms that would be banned. Feinstein says a veteran may be mentally ill and should be prevented from purchasing firearms.


The California Democrat also made the bizarre claim that the “advent of PTSD” is a “new phenomenon” and a “product of the Iraq war.”



Here’s exactly what she said in context: “The problem with expanding this is that, you know, with the advent of PTSD, which I think is a new phenomenon as a product of the Iraq War, it’s not clear how the seller or transferrer of a firearm covered by this bill would verify that an individual was a member, or a veteran, and that there was no impairment of that individual with respect to having a weapon like this.”

[iraiam]

The California Democrat also made the bizarre claim that the “advent of PTSD” is a “new phenomenon” and a “product of the Iraq war.”

That's because she knows she can put that manure in a bowl and low information self serving voters will slurp it up like it's vici swa.

She's relying on the fact that the term itself "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder" is relatively new, just a newer name for the same old disorder.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

In 1980, the American Psychiatric Association added PTSD to the third edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III) nosologic classification scheme. Although controversial when first introduced, the PTSD diagnosis has filled an important gap in psychiatric theory and practice. From an historical perspective, the significant change ushered in by the PTSD concept was the stipulation that the etiological agent was outside the individual (i.e., a traumatic event) rather than an inherent individual weakness (i.e., a traumatic neurosis). The key to understanding the scientific basis and clinical expression of PTSD is the concept of "trauma."

http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/...d-overview.asp

[sunaj]

This is pretty unbelievable,
wondering if the NRA is getting involved in this,
perhaps a campaign of phone calls to reps are appropriate here
sunaj

[ScottRiqui]

It appears that part of the issue is that Maryland uses a "maximum possible sentence" threshold to determine whether to strip gun rights, rather than a "felony or misdemeanor" test.

So does this mean that *anyone* in Maryland who's been convicted of misdemeanor assault has lost their gun rights?

[Evan Thomas]

The most interesting thing that I took away from the video is that Alan Gura has taken his case pro bono, so I presume that Mr. Gura thinks it's a good test case to challenge the MD law. (He must have some way of cloning himself, to handle all the cases he takes on... )

According to the NRA/ILA website, 'Maryland has no constitutional provision granting a “right to bear arms.”'

This may account for Mr. Gura's interest in this particular case.

Originally Posted by ScottRiqui

So does this mean that *anyone* in Maryland who's been convicted of misdemeanor assault has lost their gun rights?

Apparently it does. According to Wikipedia's summary of MD law:

Persons who have been convicted of a crime of violence, any Maryland-classified felony, conspiracy to commit a felony, a common law crime for which the person received a term of imprisonment for more than two years, or any Maryland-classified misdemeanor that carries a statutory penalty of more than two years.(My emphasis.)

I take this to mean that any crime of violence, whether felony or misdemeanor, would disqualify someone from owning a gun.