Brandon Turbeville

Activist Post

On Friday January 3, the Obama administration announced two new “executive actions” which infringe even further on the rights of Americans who wish to own firearms. The new actions are “aimed at strengthening federal background checks for gun purchasers, with a particular focus on limiting firearm access for those with mental health issues.”

According to reports coming from outlets such as AP, the new executive actions include a rule change that will “clarify terminology used by federal law to prohibit people from purchasing a firearm for mental health reasons.” The Obama Administration claims that states have been complaining that the current wording of the rule is unclear, causing them undue hardship in determining “who should be blocked from buying a weapon.” Of course, nowhere in the alleged discussion between the states and the federal government has there been talk of the fact that all American citizens have a right to keep and bear arms and that bureaucrats and government officials do not have the right to “determine who should be blocked from buying a weapon.”

Regardless, the rule change also helps “states determine what information may be shared with the federal background check system for firearms transfers.” In other words, the new change allows even greater cooperation between state registration systems and the federal version, and thus a greater ability to justify the prevention of a larger number of firearm purchases.

According to the Huffington Post, “The first proposed rule change, by the Department of Justice, expands the definition of the statutory term ‘committed to a mental institution’ to clarify that the prohibition on firearms purchases applies to people subjected to involuntary outpatient as well as inpatient commitments.” Considering the extreme ease in which a person may be involuntarily committed to either inpatient or outpatient mental health facilities, this new rule will clearly affect many more average Americans that most are willing to believe.

Such was the case of David Sarti who went to his doctor because he was experiencing chest pains. After making a simple joke, Sarti was declared “mentally defective,” subjected to forcible “mental evaluation,” and stripped of his Second Amendment rights.

The second rule change, however, is somewhat more concerning since it “would give hospitals and other entities covered by patient privacy provisions more flexibility in the information they provide to the background check system.”

Clearly, this rule change would allow for the furthering of the merger between healthcare providers/healthcare institutions and law enforcement and Big Brother, as well as the ultimate goal of using “mental health” as a justification for the prevention of firearms purchases. Although the administration predictably denies that this will be the case, the fact is that the medical industry is already so closely related to the governmental and law enforcement community that it more accurately appears to be no more than another division of the same system.

In what serves as an unfortunate historical guide, it is important to remember that “mental health” and psychiatry were used for many years in the Soviet Union for the disappearance and disarmament of dissidents. The mental health profession continues to be used in both modern day Russia as well as the whole of the Western world for means of control, particularly in places like the United Kingdom.

For those individuals who may have believed that the fight for gun rights was over with the recent failure of the administration to push oppressive and unconstitutional federal gun control laws through Congress, the fact is that the fight is far from over.

Indeed, recent unconstitutional legislation passed in California, New York, and Connecticut has resulted in the mass registration, re-registration, and some instances the confiscation of guns owned by law-abiding citizens. This confiscation has taken place in true Communo-Fascist style with little opposition from the American people or the gun rights community.

Nevertheless, those expecting a public declaration of total gun illegality and martial law confiscation will be ringing their hands in anticipation for a very long time. Of course, while they ring their hands and anticipate the declaration of outright war against gun owners, their guns are being slowly stripped from their hands in an incremental fashion. Slight rule changes and isolated confiscations will continue to take place over time until the public has been properly acclimated to them as a fact of life, at which point the public’s line in the sand will be moved slightly forward once more. Again, the line will be crossed, but only slightly. Eventually, Americans will wake up to find themselves completely disarmed and neutered in a land in which they once believed they were free. At that point, with a completely defenseless population, the thin veneer of freedom will be lifted.

It is time for gun owners and gun rights activists to go on the political offensive. In 2014, it is no longer a legitimate mode of activism to be content to defend your already attenuated freedoms. It is time to make demands. It is time to throw compromise out the window.

Read other articles by Brandon Turbeville here.

Brandon Turbeville is an author out of Florence, South Carolina. He has a Bachelor’s Degree from Francis Marion University and is the author of six books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, and The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria. Turbeville has published over 275 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s podcast Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.