Causes.com
| 11.6.17

Your Turn: Who Shouldn’t Be Allowed to Buy Guns?

Join us and tell your reps how you feel!

What’s the story?

President Donald Trump called Sunday’s mass shooting at a Texas church a "mental health problem at the highest level," labelling the gunman a “deranged individual.”

The suspect, Devin Patrick Kelley, served in the U.S. Air Force until he was discharged for bad conduct in 2014. Prior to the discharge, he was court-martialed in 2012 for two counts of assault on his spouse and child.

Should this individual have been allowed to buy a gun?

Who can’t own a gun?

The Gun Control Act of 1968, which was later amended by the 1994 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, makes it a felony offense for certain "prohibited persons" to own any firearm. It’s also a felony to knowingly sell or transfer a firearm to one of this “prohibited persons.”

The nine categories of people prohibited from possessing firearms under the Gun Control Act include:

  • Persons under indictment for, or convicted of, any felony crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year

  • Fugitives from justice

  • Persons who are unlawful users of, or addicted to, any controlled substance (this includes medical marijuana patients)

  • Persons who have been declared by a court as mental defectives or have been committed to a mental institution

  • Illegal aliens or aliens who were admitted to the United States under a nonimmigrant visa

  • Persons who have been dishonorably discharged from the Armed Forces

  • Persons who have renounced their U.S. citizenship

  • Persons subject to certain types of restraining orders

  • Persons who have been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence

Kelley’s "bad conduct" discharge fell just short of an dishonorable discharge. And while it’s unclear if his assault charges constituted domestic violence, assault can be treated as a felony, and should have prevented the former airman from owning a gun.

Over the years, a number of other groups have been the target of proposed gun bans:

  • People on the no fly list. Following the mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, in 2015, President Barack Obama urged Congress to pass legislation that would prevent suspected terrorists on the no-fly list from purchasing firearms.

  • Mentally ill individuals. During the twilight hours of the Obama administration, a regulation was put into place that required the Social Security Administration to identify and report to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) those individuals who couldn’t work because of psychiatric disabilities and, because of these severe mental impairments, were assigned a money manager. In February of this year, President Trump repealed this regulation—a number of Senate democrats and independents sided with their Republican colleagues in voting to revoke it.

  • Mentally ill veterans. There has also been separate legislation were veterans deemed too mentally incompetent to handle their own financial affairs would be prevented from buying guns.

  • Volatile persons. A study out of Duke University concluded that past violent behavior – not mental illness or substance abuse – is the strongest indicator of future violent behavior; the author and his colleagues therefore recommended that those who’ve been arrested for violent misdemeanors should be banned from owning a firearm. Currently, California bans people convicted of a range of violent misdemeanors from owning a gun for 10 years; some of these misdemeanors include "threatening public officers, employees, and school officials," “assault with a stun gun or taser,” and “stalking.”

  • Protestors. The locations where individuals should be allowed to carry guns is another Your Turn, but following the events in Charlottesville this summer, the ACLU announced it would "no longer defend hate groups seeking to march with firearms." Should protesters be banned from carrying guns, even in states that allow open or concealed carry?

What do you think?

Who shouldn’t be allowed to own guns? Or are there some on the current list of prohibited owners you think should be allowed to purchase a firearm? Given the events in Texas, do we need to expand the law to include those court-martialed for "bad conduct"? Should the rest of the U.S. follow California’s example? Hit Take Action, tell your reps, then tell your fellow citizens below.

— Josh Herman

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(Photo Credit: iJacky / iStockphoto)