THE ANCHORAGE DAILY PLANET
If you are among those who believe Alaska is such a conservative state that no politician ever would pose a threat to Second Amendment rights you might take a moment to review House Bill 62.
Introduced by Democratic Reps. Geran Tarr, Harriet Drummond and Andy Josephson all of Anchorage, it would, among other things, require “physicians, psychologists, psychological associates, social workers, marital and family therapists, and licensed professional counselors” to annually report to a “central registry” all “serious” gun threats – even if that information is not corroborated. What would be “serious” is not clear.
Such statutes are known as “red flag” laws and this one would give “physicians, psychologists, psychological associates, social workers, marital and family therapists, and licensed professional counselors” incredible power over those who own guns.
Never a hotbed of gun rights advocates, information from the health care industry would be used in building the state threat “registry.”
MustReadAlaska.com points out: “Social work is intrinsically political by virtue of the fact that it is concerned with social change and a quest for social justice,” according to a paper published in the SocialWorkHelper, a publication of the International Journal of Social Welfare.
So, the very people those in crisis need to trust and talk with openly would be required to report their rants to a central state registry. Under the bill, the health care professionals “may” withhold the names of those involved. Or they may not.
Imagine, if you will, someone in the middle of a messy divorce uttering something angry and stupid to their psychologist, who then, if this proposal were to become law, could report them to the “registry.”
Peace officers, under this proposal, also would be able to petition a court for a “gun violence protective order,” allowing them to take guns from people until a later court hearing if they deem them to be “in crisis.”
If the proposed legislation were to pass – and one can only hope most Alaska legislators are too concerned with concepts such as fair play and due process to allow that – Alaska would join 11 other states in enacting a red-flag law since the shooting at Parkland, Fla. on Feb. 14, 2018. Connecticut was the first state to pass such a law, after a mass shooting in 1999, and it has been used more than 1,500 times since its passage.
Such laws are clear invitations to abuse, the House proposal perhaps more so than others because it requires reporting, not proof. Unless and until such laws provide for adequate due process and punishment for false reporting, they simply are yet another way to grab guns.
Alaska lawmakers should reject House Bill 62 because it fails on all counts.
MustReadAlaska.com notes the bill is in the House Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Matt Claman, who rated 43 percent by the National Rifle Association on gun rights issues.
Please remember Mental Health laws are used by all Totalitarian governments to take peoples rights away and to put them in prison. Seymour Marvin Mills Jr. sui juris
These individuals need to be voted out of Office. This is a direct assault on our 2A rights in the Last Frontier
As we’re transitioned from being represented to being ruled, productive Alaskans should be ready to fight this skirmish with jury nullification.
.
Jury nullification means deliberately rejecting the evidence, refusing to apply the law because the jury wants to send a message about a social issue larger than the case, or because the result dictated by law opposes the jury’s sense of justice, morality, or fairness.
.
Remember, at voir dire, prospective jurors have to tell the Court if they can’t render a fair and impartial verdict because, for example, they’d never obey, or convict anyone else of disobeying, a “law” created to bypass the Second Amendment.
.
It’s one thing for Representatives Geran Tarr, Harriet Drummond, and Andy Josephson to pass a law, it’ll be quite a different thing when juries consistently invoke jury nullification and refuse to convict “violators”.
.
Imagine what’s likely to happen, when “… “physicians, psychologists, psychological associates, social workers, marital and family therapists, and licensed professional counselors” try to confiscate guns from Native villagers and rebellious non-Natives… what guns? we got no stinkin’ guns!
.
Imagine what will happen when the brand-new state threat “registry” gets hacked with the addition or deletion of a few names, alive and/or dead. Can’t happen, you say? Remember the Great Alaska LeDoux Vote Experiment?
.
You can bet no civil and criminal penalties are included for willfully or even carelessly misusing the law.
.
So, yes. the law’s probably a done deal, and yes, planning for grassroots pushback is probably well underway.
.
Instead of causing a state-wide rebellion, maybe Peoples Representatives Geran Tarr, Harriet Drummond, and Andy Josephson should keep the peace, if not the faith, by sticking to what they do best, Getting Money for their buyers
.
and leave governing to the adults, yes?
Morrigan, I’ve never seen a judge so angry as when a prospective juror, at voir dire, was ordered out of his court room and to never come back. I thought judges wanted the truth in the court room.
The sponsors of this bill want nothing less than Bernie being able to say, “Even Alaskans support stricter gun controls.”
Just gun threats? Seems kinda’ shallow. If the state is interested in public safety, perhaps it should broaden it’s interest to all threats. Perhaps it should define the language that best defines a serious threat. Or public peril. Or perhaps it should be simply discarded as more democrat crap.
Come and Take It!
My gun rights are not up for debate. Any gun control bill should be killed by this legislature. They are being pushed by groups like Moms Demand Action who are funded by Bloomberg. They push a false narrative about gun owners. They have gone as far as saying we dont need guns the police will protect us. The globalists are using these groups like Moms Demand Action as agents to remove every gun from all Americans. This is there plan to take away our guns by attacking our constitutional rights to carry a weapon anywhere we go. Again if we give into them we wont be able to get our gun rights back. So stand tall Alaskans against any gun control laws that these communists put forward.
This article was written five years ago but is still valid.
Red Flag Laws are Bad News
Gun ownership should not be the VA’s focus
Alaska Older Veterans Report
Just when you thought the VA couldn’t be more offensive, we find out they are denying veterans with traumatic brain injuries and/or post-traumatic stress disorders (TBI/PTSD) of their Second Amendment rights. Yes, you read this correctly, veterans asking for help to recover from service-connected injuries are being deemed a danger to themselves and others and unable to handle their affairs by an unelected, appointed VA bureaucrat working for the very government agency founded to help them “re-integrate” back into peacetime civilian life.
While the vast majority of senior managers at the VA are receiving performance bonuses for a “job well done,” waiting lists disappear and veterans die. This practice is not limited to TBI/PTSD patients but is applied to older vets with injuries/illnesses that have left them unable to write or walk and may be in need of some assistance.
Some helpful smiling clerk takes down all of the information needed to start the benefits you have earned and disappears. In a couple of weeks, you get your much-anticipated letter from the VA. Instead of the dates and amounts of the benefits you thought were contained in the letter, you find out the VA has submitted your name to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ NICS. (Hint: the C stands for Criminal.)
So, just to be fair, I have researched the available databases for some area in which the VA excels and have found one. The VA leads the nation in reporting names (veterans) to the ATF’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) which brands a veteran as a criminal for owning, buying or transporting a firearm to include ammo. You are a hero one minute and a criminal the next after your visit to the VA. The VA as of August 2011 accounted for 98 percent of NICS submissions. With the help of the VA, veterans now account for 11 percent of all Americans on the ATF’s prohibited list of citizens with mental health issues. I bet that exceeds accepted job performance standards.
While terrorists are being read their rights, given legal consul and health care better than our vets, injured American veterans are being denied one of their civil rights without any adjudication process. After this mental health professional decides a vet is a danger to society, it’s up to the vet to prove otherwise by obtaining a letter from a doctor. Yes, your primary health care provider that works for the same VA as the clerk that put you on the list now has to take you off the list. But wait, you need psychological evaluation services first, which has a backlog (i.e. a waiting list). See the problem? Are you old enough to remember the movie Catch 22?
The veteran is left with an untenable decision: do I need the VA services and pension more than my Second Amendment rights or not? This is soft tyranny at its worst and should not be tolerated. Veterans are not commodities to be used for political nefarious intentions but citizens who have volunteered to defend our country in a time of national need. The progressives have learned their lesson in the aftermath of Vietnam, which was not to spit on vets anymore. Passive-aggressive methods are much better and harder to detect until the damage has been done.
A society that allows our borders to be overrun by drug cartel gang members with no redeeming social values and then allowed to disappear into our communities while at the very same time intentionally denying our veterans’ basic civil rights is a national disgrace.
It’s time for veterans to stand up and tell the elected officials veterans are not some prop for photo opportunities at Fourth of July parades but are some of the best and brightest individuals this country has ever produced.
I have seen political ads for years about what our elected officials have done for this vet or that vet in their time of need. If I personally needed a problem fixed, I would not hesitate to use them. But the bigger question is why I should have to get my Senator or U.S. Representative involved in a problem that is systemic in nature and has been ubiquitous since the 1960s. The nature of employment at the VA and other federal agencies seems to be something that needs visiting.
Oh, if we only had a “Blue Ribbon Committee” comprised of retired federal workers who would convene in our capital for only expenses and per diem, we could solve this problem rather quickly.
Fix it and fix it now.
Mike Dryden is a retired Army Major and former 101st ABN DIV Army helicopter attack pilot. Air Assault!
Many people don’t really understand what I will be saying here, but just please listen because there are several Supreme Court decisions to back up what I will be saying. Before the Civil War, everyone was a “citizen of New York” or Georgia, Florida etc. After the Civil War (you can read this in Senate Report 93-549) the people became a “citizen of United States” and “Residents” of their States and therefore unknowingly gave up all their (Un a Lien Able) Unalienable Rights and became “Subjects of the Crown”. The Court Cases say that being a “citizen of the United States” you have no rights unless a Judge chooses to grant you some. Also before the 17th Amendment all States were Sovereign and appointed their own “Senator of the United States”. Now the States have no representation in Congress because the “United States Senators”, (note how this name was reversed) because these so-called Senators are elected by the “citizens of the United States” instead of Appointed by the State to Represent the State. This two facts are the only reason Congress is writing Anti-Gun Laws and any other Laws against “We The People”. You and you alone can start the process to reverse this Unconstitutional act by once again becoming a “citizen of Alaska” or New York, Georgia, etc. and recording this at your State Recording Office.
Article 5 of “The Constitution of the United States” says “- – no state without it’s consent shall loose it’s equal suffarage in the Senate”. Eleven States either voted NO or refused to vote for the 17th Amendment. T.P.T.B. then offered these States a “Cooperative Agreement” to give up this Right and they did, but that is Unconstitutional. Seymour Marvin Mills Jr. sui juris
Comments are closed.