Only in America is the extension of gun rights to the mentally defective an actual debate. More than a week after the massacre at Virginia Tech that claimed 33 lives, America’s gun organizations have spoken out about the killings. And rather than give a collective “my bad,” the two prominent U.S. gun lobbying groups seem to be split on the issue of guns in the hands of the mental. The National Rifle Association, America’s largest gun lobby with 3.5 million members, clarified its position Tuesday that those with a history of mental illness and treatment, like Cho Seung-Hui, should not be allowed to obtain handguns. NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre stated “Our position on this is crystal clear: If you are adjudicated by a court to be mentally defective, suicidal, a danger to yourself or to others, you should be prohibited from buying a firearm.” Well, it looks like me and the NRA finally agree on something. The NRA however, chose not to comment on the political implications of the Virginia Tech massacre citing sensitivity to the families of the victims. I’m sure they’d say what they always say: that guns don’t kill people, people kill people. And to that I would echo the words of comedian Eddie Izzard who once said, “I think the gun helps.” But America’s second biggest gun lobby, the Gun Owners of America (300,000 members), believe that stripping the mentally defective of their gun rights is unconstitutional. The group that calls itself “the only no-compromise gun lobby in Washington” has launched a campaign to block a congressional bill that creates a FBI mental health record database that gun dealers have to check before selling someone a gun. As a Newsweek story Tuesday points out, federal law already prohibits Americans with mental illness to obtain a gun, however individual states often fail to report crazy gun buyers to the feds. Which is why the bill, proposed by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) and Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), seems like such a good idea. While gun nuts don’t seem like the best judges of who and who isn’t equipped to have guns, surely those who work with the mentally ill can clearly explain to Americans why the mentally ill shouldn’t be able to own firearms. Dr. Nada Stotland, vice president of the American Psychiatry Association said this: “It is unconscionable to restrict people’s civil rights because they have a medical illness.” Ok, maybe she can’t. Is this woman for real? When the government confines a lunatic to a mental institution and doesn’t allow him or her to leave that institution, it is “restricting people’s civil rights because they have a mental illness.” Why, with guns, should it be any different? What is unconscionable is that this is an actual debate– that there are living, breathing human beings in America who want guns in the hands of the mentally defective. As a country that prides itself on bringing freedom here and spreading democracy there, until America snaps out of its maniacal obsession with guns, the rest of the world will never accept America as benevolent, peaceful or, for lack of a better word, sane.
•Newsweek: NRA’s Take on Cho Massacre