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I rented a room to a vet that should never be near a gun. He told me that when gets depressed he can do stupid things. He disappeared one day, the police found his car parked on the side of the freeway in SE Fort Worth. Later he called from the VA hospital in Dallas. He told us he was feeling down and forgot how to switch to his auxiliary gas tank so when in ran out of gas he got out and walked.

Current laws keep him from getting a gun, why do we need a new one just for vets?

Unlike the other renter who did have any diagnosed problems this was the only month he was late on his rent. A good man.

Current laws keep him from getting a gun, why do we need a new one just for vets?

There is no new law just for vets. That is the GOA's distortion. The new law seeks to block the mentally unfit from buying guns, and some of those folks will be vets. Probably a disproportionate number, because they -- like cops, firefighters, ER docs, prison guards, and other folks who do the tough jobs -- receive more emotional trauma than the rest of us.

Good lord, I actually restrained a guy who, in his flashback, thought he was killing a North Vietnamese general while actually loading and stalking General Westmoreland. I had to choose between turning this lifer over for ruination or saying I was “goofing around”.

They weren’t there while I bulldogged the man and damn near killed him after he declared the general was “a gook target worth any amount of lives to take out”. This shell-shocked master sergeant loaded a live magazine into his M-16 during a practice exercise. As Westmoreland came down the little mountain to inspect the fortifications this sergeant rushed to a targeting platform of piled slabs while instructing me to get around “Charlie” through a gully on the opposite side. I scrabbled after the sergeant saying that he was stalking an American General, but he continued trying to get a bead on the man.

While there’s a lot of citizens out there who feel that Westmoreland was directly responsible for their children’s deaths I can not apologize for protecting him in that instance. The general went on to have a natural death and “Sergent Flashback” was minded over to eventually draw an honorable retirement and the better pay that brings (the man was a Vietnam hero).

But, Thomas Thomas, I’d trust that man as my neighbor to this day over the likes of those who immediately look to the government for the right thing to do. He got needed help while the majority of our fellow citizens voluntarily give in to a fantasy that our nation is somehow advanced through overall disarmament.