It used to be that medical records were private. Not anymore.
The names of hundreds of thousands of current and former New Jersey residents who have been involuntarily committed to psychiatric facilities have been added to an FBI database used to bar firearms purchases by people with criminal records or a history of mental illness.
New Jersey court officials said that they began forwarding digital records to the FBI earlier this year and that they expect to complete the program by the end of May.
The Civil Commitment Automated Tracking system has turned over identities of 280,000 people subject to involuntary civil commitment dating to 1975 in 16 of the state’s 21 counties. The five remaining counties—Atlantic, Essex, Hudson, Monmouth and Bergen—likely will be added by the end of May.
Officials of the New Jersey Administrative Office of the Courts say they expect the total number of people whose names have been sent to the FBI will reach about 420,000.
Many states simply require a court order to declare someone too mentally unfit to own a firearm. Others have passed additional laws which, in some cases, get so specific as to actually threaten the rights of those who only deal with temporary struggles. I wrote about mental health and gun laws months ago here. So on the heels of Missouri sharing citizens’ private info with the feds, now goes New Jersey. Who knows how many states are sharing, or have shared, such information with the federal government, all in the name of controlling law-abiding gun owners?
In the case of Jared Loughner, professionals at both the college he attended and the controversial Sheriff Dupnik’s department reportedly ignored multiple warnings about Loughner’s state of mind. His college even told him he couldn’t return without being cleared by a medical professional yet they didn’t follow through on their own procedure of notifying said mental health professionals.
Those who want to abridge the civil liberty of self defense enshrined in the Second Amendment seem to believe that mental illness is the driving force behind gun-related deaths. It’s a universal statement designed to use mental health as a tool to infringe on rights. In reality, gun-related deaths are driven by gang activity, thugs, and just plain evil people. Sometimes murderers aren’t mentally impaired they’re just evil. The left’s ideology dangerously rejects moral absolutes, thus tries to legislate via health and use it as an excuse to further breach right to privacy.
Instead of implementing existing procedures on the books or employing proper and regular medical evaluations for those suffering from extreme mental impairments, the federal government simply wants the medical histories of anyone who may be suspect. Guilty before being proven innocent, so to speak. Vice President Biden already admitted that they don’t have the time to enforce the laws already in effect. The solution is to apparently stigmatize mental illness and confiscate guns even from those who’ve taken anti-anxiety medication. If otherwise healthy patients are aware that their battle with depression or anxiety could some day bar them from their civil liberty of self defense they’ll be less likely to seek treatment. What’s more, we have now passed through the looking glass to classifying as a suspect every person who’se ever dealt with a mental issue. Mom who had to get post-partum meds for baby blues? No Second Amendment for you. Man who struggled for a couple of years and went on anti-depression medication after losing his wife? Kiss your Second Amendment goodbye. They could be murderers.
Or worse! One of the many million law-abiding gun owners who live, breathe, and carry with no incident, day in and day out, who wreak havoc on the left’s narrative of control.
