SSRIs, Psychotropic Drugs, and Gun Control

While reading about proposed gun control in NY, I read about the state not allowing people on Psychotropic drugs to buy guns. Those sound big and scary, but if you take Zoloft to reduce anxiety, or a sleeping pill, or even some anti-inflammatory medications, or even BENADRYL, then the state says you’re too mentally unsound to own a firearm.  You can still drive a car, mind you, but no guns.

Which prompts the question: Are they going to make Police Departments fire all officers on those drugs?

My guess is no, because this is all politics.  If they do not, it’s evidence that this is a political ploy to remove guns from law abiding citizens.

 

Man Who Fled Communist Cuba Testifies Before Senators on How Gun Control is a Bad Idea

Manuel Martinez, who fled communist Cuba, testified in Salem, Oregon before a committee of  Senators on gun control.

Dan Sandini at Daylight Disinfectant writes:

Mr. Martinez escaped the brutal Communist regime in Cuba in 1954.  His testimony included how citizens under Castro were first disarmed by legislation similar to that being shepherded along by Gun-Grabber in Chief Floyd Prozanski.  Defenseless, many Cuban Citizens were later summarily slaughtered.

It’s the same in every county where oppression has arisen. Disarming the public opens the door to oppression. The issue is not hunting, or even self defense per se. An armed populace is intended to keep the Government from ever becoming tyrannical. Mr. Martinez recounts how the Cuban people lost their freedom:

In 1957 a Revolution … individuals … malicious individuals, masquerading as Democrats, revolutionaries, established a regime … a dictatorial regime … in my nation.  Called Communism, Socialism, Stalinism, Marxism, and whatever other named -ism you want to put on it.  The reason why it was done was to take away the guns from the People.   The right of the People to wear guns.  That is a God-given Right.  It’s not given by anybody.  It’s not given by any group.   It’s the same thing as freedom, which is a God-given Right.  And no one, absolutely no one, has the authority to take it away.  To cease to defend the Second Amendment, and my God-given Right of freedom, will cease only with my death.

Here’s the video of his testimony.

More States Passing Pro-Gun Laws Than Gun Control Laws

In this breakdown by the Wall Street Journal [link], you can see the number of bills and new laws being enacted in favor of gun rights.

Though just from the news you’d get the impression that the entire country is leaning towards more gun control.

It also helps to have a working knowledge of the thing you’re trying to ban. [link] But, of course it’s the person who supports gun rights that’s the unreasonable one.

Questioned on what’s to be done with the millions of high-capacity magazines already in circulation, [Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette] asserted that they’d be discarded once they’re used.

“I will tell you these are ammunition — bullets — so the people who have those now they are going to shoot them, and so if you ban — if you ban them in the future, the number of these high capacity magazines is going to decrease dramatically over time because the bullets will have been shot and there won’t be any more available,” she said.

Magazines, however, are reusable as they can be filled with more bullets.

Oops.

Drone Strikes in the US?

NBC reported that the US has made the case for drone strikes on American citizens.

The one aspect of this story that stands out is this part containing a quote  from White House counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan:

Brennan was the first administration official to publicly acknowledge drone strikes in a speech last year, calling them “consistent with the inherent right of self-defense.”

Just to clarify our Government’s position on the application of the concept of “self-defense”:

1. The right is inherent to the government to use lethal force as a preemptive strike against it’s citizens.
2. Self-defense does not apparently include stopping potential threats from entering the US via the Mexican border by sufficiently enforcing current laws or closing the border altogether.
3. The White House believes the government has the right to use deadly weapons to defend itself, while at the same time advocating much stricter gun control laws. Laws that, should be noted, only really affect the law abiding (i.e. those that wish to defend themselves.)

So to sum up, 2nd Amendment supporters are mocked for believing that they would ever need their guns to defend against tyranny.  The question no one seems to ask is, 100 years from now, who will be in the White House with their finger on the drone trigger?

And that’s the purpose of the 2nd Amendment.