{"id":26,"date":"2013-04-16T21:20:15","date_gmt":"2013-04-16T21:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.williamrussell.net\/?p=26"},"modified":"2013-04-16T21:20:15","modified_gmt":"2013-04-16T21:20:15","slug":"warriors-weapons-constitutional-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.williamrussell.net\/?p=26","title":{"rendered":"WARRIORS, WEAPONS, & CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n<\/p>\n

Originally <\/font>Posted 12<\/font>\/06\/2012<\/font><\/i><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n


\n<\/font>
\nAn article in Monday\u2019s Washington Times, highlighted the Democratic
\nefforts in the Senate to block Senator Tom Coburn\u2019s amendment to require
\na court order before denying a veteran under Veteran\u2019s Administration
\ncare the right to own a gun.  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

Until four years ago, I would not have
\nbeen so concerned about the VA making a medical mental competency call
\non an individual veteran being treated for mental health issues.  <\/span>Certainly, no one in their right mind would argue that the mentally incompetent should own guns.  <\/span>Also,
\nthe vast majority of the people who work for the bureaucratic
\norganization known as the VA are professionals and are concerned for the
\nveterans they care for. But the issue of competency becomes an issue
\nbecause the VA is a bureaucracy, and a political one at that.<\/font><\/p>\n

Every man and woman who enlists in our
\nmilitary services raises their right hand and swears to support and
\ndefend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies,
\nforeign and domestic.  <\/span>When they become citizen-guardians
\nof the Constitution, they sign blank checks with their lives and
\nsubordinate some of their Constitutional rights to the good order and
\ndisciple of the military, which is necessary to complete that mission.  <\/span>Specifically,
\nthey give up their rights to free political speech, submit to random
\nsearch and seizure of their personal property (especially when living in
\nthe barracks or on board a ship), and relinquish their right to posses
\nand control their personally owned weapons when living on military
\ninstallations.  <\/span>While most will leave military service
\nafter their initial enlistment, they continue to up hold their oaths as
\nlife-long commitments as they continue their lives as civilians with the
\nfull rights to free speech and gun ownership that all citizens enjoy. 
<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

There are well meaning efforts to
\nhighlight the challenges of those veterans who suffer because of the
\nwounds or stresses they endured when they went into harm\u2019s way on our
\nnation\u2019s behalf. But all too often it becomes a political stiletto that
\nis used to back-stab veterans in the political arena while professing to
\npromote their causes.  <\/span>There is an underlying political
\nnarrative being used by the Democrats and the Administration which
\nserves undermine the political credibility of veterans. It is a
\nnarrative in which most veterans\u2019 simple desire for a bit of gratitude,
\nis answered with condescending pity from those whom they have protected.  <\/span>It
\nis one which highlights traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and post
\ntraumatic stress (PTSD). It visualizes all veterans as having been
\ntraumatized to the point that any expression of passion for the oath
\nthey took and the causes they served as due to post traumatic stress;
\none that portrays veterans as \u201cloved but unstable.\u201d This is a narrative
\nwhich seeks to marginalize veterans politically, and disarm them
\nliterally.<\/font><\/p>\n

Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein has led this narrative.  <\/span>Ever
\nsince she took to the airwaves and blamed the murders of San Francisco
\nMayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk on their murder\u2019s
\nservice in Vietnam in 1978, she has continued her crusade against gun
\nownership, especially semiautomatic weapons.  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

Fortunately and despite all the
\npolitical and media attention given to TBI and PTSD rates among service
\nmembers and veterans, the crime and suicide rates among combat veterans
\nare much lower than the rates for the same age, sex, and social
\ndemographics of the general population.  <\/span>Yet, veterans who
\nhave sacrificed for this nation, have the bar lowered for the
\ninfringement of their rights after they leave military service, and are
\nportrayed as somehow being less grounded and stable for political
\nviewpoints and gun ownership than their civilian counterparts who have
\nnot served. <\/font><\/p>\n

An article in the Wall Street Journal
\nfollowing the Gabby Giffords mass shooting, reports that all other
\ncitizens require court adjudication to be declared mentally incompetent,
\nwith a total of 1.1 million people currently on the NICS mentally unfit
\nlist. This means that the 100,000 people currently banned from gun
\nownership by VA injunction mentioned by the Brady Center in the
\nWashington Times article, account for a large portion of those banned in
\nthe NICS.  <\/span>This demonstrates that veterans are much more
\nlikely to be reported in NICS and banned from gun ownership for mental
\nincapacity than those who have not served. The problem is not that
\nmentally unfit veterans are on the list, but that they are placed there
\nby bureaucrats against whom they have no independent appeal. <\/font><\/p>\n

This is very worrisome because
\nPresident Obama and his administration cannot be depended upon to defend
\nthe Constitutional rights of Veterans any more than they could be to
\ndefend the voting rights of our Active Duty personnel who are deployed.
\nThe Department of Defense under the leadership of Defense Secretary
\nPanetta, paid minimal lip service to ensuring the voting rights of our
\ndeployed Service Members in the last election.  <\/span>Many
\nabsentee ballots for those in Afghanistan were destroyed in a plane
\ncrash. There was also a very lack-luster effort on the part of the
\nDefense Department to get deployed Soldiers to register for their
\nabsentee ballots and to get those ballots to them, in spite of the legal
\nrequirements to do so. Then, the President went beyond simply failing
\nin defending the rights of Service Members to vote, and engaged in
\nactive suppression of those rights. President Obama\u2019s re-election
\ncampaign sued to eliminate the three day extension on absentee and early
\nvoting for members of military in Ohio.  <\/span>Is the VA any less subject to political manipulation by the Administration than the Defense Department? <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/span>What is to prevent
\nObama\u2019s Veterans Administration from implementing a rule requiring every
\nPurple Heart recipient to pass a \u201cmental competency\u201d test before being
\nallowed to own weapons? What is to prevent the VA from extending that
\ncompetency test to any Veteran who has served in a combat zone, because
\nthey might have PTSD?  <\/span>What is to prevent this
\nAdministration and the political bureaucracy of the VA from
\ncross-referencing that competency test with a list of known Oath Keepers
\nor other political test?<\/font><\/p>\n

There is a very telling scene in the
\nmovie \u201cThe Last Emperor.\u201d The young Emperor of China returns to
\nManchuria in 1935 to find his palace guards disarmed and Japanese
\nappointed ministers in control of his government. [i]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>
\nMost Americans are not used to thinking such a scene could have
\nrelevance to the United States because we are a Constitutional Republic
\nwhose citizens have an active role in governing and protecting our form
\nof government. But there seems to be an active Democratic effort to
\nmarginalize and disarm the sworn guardians of our Republic. <\/font><\/p>\n

This is why it is so important for the
\nCongress to prevent the Veterans Administration (VA) from unilaterally
\nruling individual veterans mentally incompetent to own guns.  <\/span>This
\nis where Senator Coburn, Congressional leaders, and the American people
\nmust continue the fight to protect the Constitutional rights of our
\nveterans, so that they will always remain the sworn citizen-guardians of
\nour Constitution. <\/font> <\/span> <\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n


<\/p>\n
\n
\n

[i]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>  <\/span>The Last Emperor,  <\/span>1987, Scene Begins @ 5:30 min mark. http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=d7YwquOxkPg<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally Posted 12\/06\/2012 An article in Monday’s Washington Times, highlighted the Democratic efforts in the Senate to block Senator Tom Coburn’s amendment to require a court order before denying a veteran under Veteran’s Administration care the right to own a gun.   Until four years ago, I would not have been so concerned about the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fist-fights-gunplay","category-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nWARRIORS, WEAPONS, & CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS - 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