Reasonable recommendations on gun control

Our View

Reasonable recommendations on gun control

Okay, Okay, we have been overloaded with more opinions that we really wanted to hear, more arm-chair quarterbacking and way too much, so-called expert analysis, regarding the worst terrorist attack on our soil since the tragic event of 911.

We’ve heard repeated calls by the liberal media and left-wing democrats for more gun laws, bans on the sale of semi-automatic rifles they erroneously label as “ASSAULT” rifles, ridiculously calling for a ban on rifle magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition and even a call for lawmakers to secretly abolish the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.

This was an extremely tragic terroristic massacre that has been totally politicized by Obama, politicians, the liberal media and anti-gun advocates to the point of absolute disgust.

With all the propaganda that has inundated us 24hours a day by all the networks, the print media, the social media and just about everyone else there was one commentary that made more sense that anything we have listened to or read these past several days.

This Forbes online column written Matthew Harper is entitled, “Here Are Some Ideas For Reform That Could Reduce Mass Shooting Without Banning Guns.” In his column, Harper said one idea put forward over the past few years by a coalition of psychiatrists, lawyers and gun violence researchers, is to treat gun violence as we would any other problem: to identify people who are at risk of committing violence, and to temporarily prevent them from buying guns or even take their guns away for a period of time.

The idea is known as “risk-based firearm policy.”

Would it have prevented the 50 murders committed by Omar Mateen in Orlando? Of course no one can accurately say if it would or wouldn’t, but federal authorities, i.e. FBI, might have been able to use some of the tools risk-based firearm advocates propose to stop him from even purchasing guns.

Let us make it clear that already the United States has a policy of depriving people of their Second Amendment rights for life because of the risk of gun violence. But this policy now applies only to the mentally ill–more specifically, the small percentage of mentally ill who are involuntarily committed, found incompetent to stand trial, or put under the guardianship of someone else.

Let’s seriously consider expanding the prohibition on gun violence to those who have short-term involuntary hospitalizations, which makes good sense.

And, as Harper has suggested, why not extend a similar process to those individuals who demonstrate behaviors that are far more predictive of future gun violence?

Some of the recommendations preventing gun ownership from The Coalition for Risk-Based Firearm Policy that should be taken seriously include:

• A person has been convicted of a misdemeanor VIOLENT crime. Studies have proven that such people were 29 percent more likely to commit a violent or gun-related crime.

• A person has committed domestic violence. No one under a restraining order for domestic violence should be allowed to purchase a gun of any type.

• A person habitually abuses alcohol or drugs. The consortium recommended preventing someone who has had two citations in five years while driving while intoxicated or two or more misdemeanor crimes involving a controlled substance from purchasing a gun.

We totally concur with this risk-based group that a law should be created which gives law enforcement the ability to TEMPORARILY seize firearms if they are warned by a family member that someone may pose a threat to himself or others.

These are reasonable recommendations we believe people on both sides of this controversial issue could very easily agree upon.