(03-05-2018 09:48 PM)arkstfan Wrote: (03-05-2018 04:45 PM)Kaplony Wrote: (03-05-2018 03:08 PM)arkstfan Wrote: If I start having seizures or my vision deteriorates my health care provider has an 800 number to call and my license is suspended. If I disagree, I can have a hearing to challenge the decision in any county in Arkansas and in some counties I can even have my choice between multiple locations. If I disagree with that decision, I can appeal to the circuit court.
If I'm being treated for hearing voices telling me to kill myself or kill other people or I become otherwise incapacitated to safely operate a firearm, there should be a similar process. Today if I start hearing voices telling me to kill and I AGREE to inpatient treatment, I'm still eligible to buy, I only get flagged if I disagree to accept treatment and someone pursues an involuntary commitment through the courts.
We have thousands of people filling out paperwork declaring "Uncle Sam, I am too mentally ill to hold down a job. Please pay me out of my social security or give me SSI." None of these people are evaluated for gun possession unless involuntarily committed.
Driving is not a right guaranteed to you by the Constitution.
There has been a process to restrict the possession of firearms from the mentally ill since 1968. It does require a hearing before a judge, but as with the possibility of the removal of any rights this should be the case. Stripping someone of their Constitutional rights should be a hard process to prevent abuses. And there's no doubt in my mind that if your idea of a 1-800 number is instituted there will be massive abuses.
Article 1 Section 8
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress
Second Amendment
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Just what regulation and disciplining do you support?
I hate copying and pasting something I've already posted but it's appropriate here:
I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials."
— George Mason, in Debates in Virginia Convention on Ratification of the Constitution, Elliot, Vol. 3, June 16, 1788
"That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms ... "
-- Samuel Adams, Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, at 86-87 (Pierce & Hale, eds., Boston, 1850)
"To suppose arms in the hands of citizens, to be used at individual discretion, except in private self-defense, or by partial orders of towns, countries or districts of a state, is to demolish every constitution, and lay the laws prostrate, so that liberty can be enjoyed by no man; it is a dissolution of the government. The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws."
--John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of the United States 475 (1787-1788)
"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive."
--Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution (Philadelphia 1787).
"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American...[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people."
--Tenche Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.
"No Free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
-- Thomas Jefferson, Proposal Virginia Constitution, 1 T. Jefferson Papers, 334,[C.J. Boyd, Ed., 1950]
" ... but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights ..."
-- Alexander Hamilton speaking of standing armies in Federalist 29
"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"
-- Patrick Henry, 3 J. Elliot, Debates in the Several State Conventions 45, 2d ed. Philadelphia, 1836
"The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them."
-- Zachariah Johnson, delegate to Virginia Ratifying Convention, Elliot, 3:645-6
"And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress ... to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.... "
--Samuel Adams
The intent of our Founding Fathers is clear