When it comes to the Second Amendment, some in the media are determined to misrepresent the facts.
The U.S. Senate voted this week to overturn a last-minute Obama-era regulation giving the Social Security Administration power to revoke a person’s Second Amendment rights based on whether he receives disability for a mental impairment that keeps him from working, or if he “[uses] a representative payee to help manage their benefits.”
Recommended Stories
The House had passed this bill on Feb. 2.
Predictably, several outspoken pro-gun control advocates in Congress, including Sens. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., are infuriated that the regulation has gone down in defeat.
More interesting than lawmaker chest thumping, however, is that many in the press seem determined to be either grossly ignorant or willfully misleading on the facts of the matter.
Consider, for example, the headline to Wednesday’s New York Times editorial, which declared, “Congress Says, Let the Mentally Ill Buy Guns.”
The Times tweeted an alternate headline on social media, reading, “Republicans in Congress are allowing people with severe mental problems to buy guns.”
God almighty.
For the Times, the regulation (which the Obama administration didn’t institute until it was on the way out) didn’t infringe on personal liberties or stigmatize persons with disabilities. On the contrary, the regulation was merely, “a sensible Obama administration rule designed to stop people with severe mental problems from buying guns,” the paper argued.
The Times conceded there is already a law barring people “adjudicated as a mental defective” from purchasing firearms. But this doesn’t go far enough, the editorial board argued.
So people adjudicated as mentally defective will still be barred from owning guns after this GOP action becomes law. That seems to undermine the entire case against the Republicans here.
It’s worth taking a moment now to recognize that Republican lawmakers were not the only ones who argued the regulation was a terrible bit of law. They were joined in their opposition by a number of disability and civil liberty advocacy groups, including the American Association of People with Disabilities, the American Association of People with Disabilities, the Arc of the United States, the Association of Mature American Citizens, the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the National Council on Disability, the National Disability Rights Network and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Like Republicans on the Hill, these groups argued that the Obama gun regulation posed a threat to civil liberties and that it stigmatized the disabled.
Tellingly, the Times’ editorial board proved these fears well-founded with the following passage [emphasis added]:
Congress struck down the rule with Republican majorities — and some Democrats notably up for reelection next year — contending that the Second Amendment rights of these troubled, disabled individuals have to be the prime concern.
Interesting.
We are now characterizing anyone with a disability for a mental impairment that keeps him from working, or a person who “[uses] a representative payee to help manage their benefits,” as a “troubled” individual.
Good job proving the point, fellas.
Unsurprisingly, the paper isn’t alone in grossly misrepresenting the issue.
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, for example, put forth her finest spin this week, claiming repeatedly on social media that Republicans killed the law for the explicit purpose of making it legal for crazy people to buy guns.
“Senate due to vote today to make it easier for seriously mentally ill people to get guns (I swear I’m not kidding). Already passed House,” she said Tuesday. “It’s not legislation that has, like, a loophole for the mentally ill. It’s a rule **specifically for** mentally ill people to get guns.”
“Senate Repubs now pushing their “make it easier for seriously mentally ill people to get guns” vote to tomorrow. Maybe something came up,” she added.”
Maddow said the next day, “The vote was literally & only to make it easier for seriously mentally ill people to buy guns.That’s it. Full stop. Embarrassed to admit it?”
At least the Times tried a bit harder with its pro-gun control spin. This Maddow stuff is just lazy.
Speaking of which, the Times concluded its editorial by accusing Congress of continuing to, “bend to the will of the gun industry.”
Considering the support lawmakers had from civil liberties and disability advocacy groups in overturning the regulation, one wonders if the Times believes the ACLU and the AADP are similarly bending to the will of the supposedly all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful gun lobby.
