But then they do a few things. First, they work very hard to prevent any type of usage of any kinds of records at all to prevent any sale of firearms. Second, they protest very heartily against anybody put up for Surgeon General who wants to discuss guns as a public health issue. Third, they celebrate the idea of not telling doctors whether they own any guns if asked (see previous bit about Surgeon General). In some states, they manage to prevent doctors from discussing guns with their patients.
And the slightly related coup de grace, but not directly: the political party most aligned with this political stance doesn't really like the idea of funding any sort of public health care, and mental illnesses generally fall into that bucket since people with mental illnesses, on average, may have problems earning much money.
And then they also say that we should enforce current laws, and until we do that, nothing else should be done, but work very hard to prevent current laws from being enforced.
And then, without some sort of database tracking who owns what guns and without doctors knowing that patients have guns, how would information that somebody probably should not have guns get translated into some sort of action to separate somebody from their guns? But the NRA is opposed to databases tracking this information, doctors talking to patients about guns, and anybody ever having guns confiscated. So how would this work? Do they want people involuntarily committed more frequently? Do they know how barbaric that is? How much worse, how much more traumatizing that is than, I don't know, tracking who's buying guns, who has guns, who's selling guns, maybe not selling guns to certain individuals, and putting everybody who buys a gun through a comprehensive background check?
I don't like the idea of confiscating guns from the mentally ill, either, since it would often require many of the terrible parts of involuntary commitment and then you have to figure out what you're going to do with the guns until the guy is stable enough for them. Or something.
Anyway, the short story is that they don't want anything to happen. Ever. Except selling more guns. Preferably to white people. Black people with guns can only be talked about as a reason to sell more guns to white people. At least, historically for the NRA. Another thing they've been used for, historically, is support by the NRA for gun control, but they're never going down that road ever again.
| < stuff and life and things | Husistock 2: The Reckoning > |
