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Reply from Ben Sasse

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RageTherapy:
We should not say simply "insane" but "insane with a serious capacity to harm others. "  There's all kinds of mental illness, and most of it does not represent threats to other people.

CustomSatellite:
"If" and I mean "if" the officials we elect had the interests of the country as a collective in the forefront of their minds"and" they used the constitution as a compass to steer our proverbial ship, there would be a useful application of mental status as a disqualifier to purchase and possess firearms. Sadly, few legislators use the constitution as it was intended. Rather, a large number of them bring their personal bias toward portions of the constitution, namely the second ammendment in this case, with them and vote according to these personal biases and not according to rule of law.

I am an FFL in the northeast part of the state and I can tell you that NICS does not track court ordered mental patients. There are exceptions to this as individual states have the ability to report but not every state does and not every case in those states are reported. I can also tell you that I'm not in favor of using NICS for this because, given the fact that elected officials have personal agendas many of which involve registration and confiscation of firearms, it would be used by some as a means to further their agendas and take away the rights of law abiding citizens.

There is a measure in place already that would be quite effective if it was enforced in cases where a person described attempts a purchase of a firearm. Question "f" on a 4473 states the following:

f. Have you ever been adjudicated mentally defective (which includes a determination by a court, board, commission, or other lawful authority that you are a danger to yourself or to others or are incompetent to manage your own affairs) OR have you ever been committed to a mental institution? (See Instructions for Question 11.f.)

Simply checking "no" to this question and completing a bgc is a crime subject to the same criminal consequence as pergury. The problem is local law enforcement says it's a federal issue and the ATF doesn't care. Nor do they care, except in select cases, that a known prohibited person attempts to purchase a firearm and completes a bgc and is denied. This is also a criminal act but again it requires enforcement to be effective and with the exception of a few cases in the literally thousands of illegal attempts, this too isn't enforced.

Do you see a pattern developing?

It's sad because if we could trust our elected officials to do the right thing and the federal government would do its job enforcing the measures it already created, our civil rights wouldn't be in jeprody and many of the people who are obtaining firearms unlawfully wouldn't be.

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