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Coburn supports 'revisiting' gun control, but stresses prohibitions need 'cause'
thehill.com ^ | 20 January, 2011 | Mike Lillis

Posted on 01/21/2011 4:18:52 AM PST by marktwain

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), one of the fiercest Second Amendment defenders on Capitol Hill, supports another look at gun laws designed to block firearm sales to the mentally ill, his office said Thursday.

Congress passed such a law in 2007, following the shooting deaths of 32 students and teachers at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Yet the suspect in this month's Arizona shooting reportedly had little trouble buying a handgun in November, even despite earlier concerns about disturbing behavior and habitual drug use.

The tragic episode — in which a federal judge was killed and a congresswoman critically injured — has prompted gun reformers on and off Capitol Hill to call for additional scrutiny of the effectiveness of the 2007 law. On Thursday, Coburn's office said the Oklahoma Republican agrees.

"He is open to revisiting the law," Coburn spokesman John Hart wrote in an e-mail. "His goal is to make sure we have a way to ensure that people who are truly mentally ill and are a threat to themselves or others are not allowed to buy a firearm.

"However," Hart added, "he won’t support any measure that prohibits any American from buying or possessing a firearm without cause."

Asked whether Coburn would spearhead an effort to revisit the 2007 law, Hart said it's still "too soon to say."

In 1968, Congress enacted a law blocking gun sales to anyone deemed by a judge to be a "mental defective." Licensed gun dealers are currently required to consult the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) to see if potential buyers fit that category — or any other prohibiting them from buying firearms.

The 2007 gun-reform law neither altered the "mental defective" designation nor expanded the categories of barred gun purchasers. Instead, it provided financial incentives to states to submit more information

(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: banglist; coburn; control; mental; tomcoburn
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The concept that the government could or should only "allow" certain people to have guns stands the very concept of American jurisprudence on its head. It presumes that the government knows all, controlls all, and should be doing so. It is wrong and ineffective.

It is crazy to set up a huge expensive bureaucratic system, require everyone to jump though hoops and prove that they are *not* criminals in order to try, ineffecively, to prevent the few individuals who are not responsible, from having legal access to guns.

This is a failed paradigm, and it should be abandoned. To accept the idea that the all gun sales should be monitored by the government, and only allowed to those it deems satisfactory is fundamentally wrong.

1 posted on 01/21/2011 4:18:56 AM PST by marktwain
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To: marktwain

A person so far out of his or her gourd as to imagine reasons to shoot someone else (not counting the prosaic crimes of robbery, murder etc.) ought to be in the rubber room until he or she recovers. Because guns aren’t the only way to kill — there’s knives, and poisons, and germs, and clubs, and such.


2 posted on 01/21/2011 4:22:15 AM PST by HiTech RedNeck (I am in America but not of America (per bible: am in the world but not of it))
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To: marktwain; All

Coburn obviously has been bought off by the Beltway crowd.

And not the first he has jumped off the real conservative bandwagon: He supported John McCain very early on in the 2008 Presidential campaign.

Oklahoma is a good conservative state...and it may be time for them to Tea Party Mr Coburn out the next time he is up for re-election


3 posted on 01/21/2011 4:23:04 AM PST by UCFRoadWarrior (Whenever something is "Global"...it means its bad for America)
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To: marktwain

“Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), one of the fiercest Second Amendment defenders on Capitol Hill, supports another look at gun laws designed to block firearm sales to the mentally ill, his office said Thursday. Congress passed such a law in 2007...”

Yeah, you might want to consider another law, because that 2007 thingy worked out so well. Idiot.


4 posted on 01/21/2011 4:24:34 AM PST by Common Sense 101
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To: marktwain

Just outlaw schizophrenia. It would be just as effective.


5 posted on 01/21/2011 4:29:14 AM PST by paulycy (Just be truthful and accurate. Let civility take care of itself.)
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To: marktwain

You have to wonder about all these so-called conservatives who veer to the left once in office.

Are they sociopaths who lied to get into office?

Are they that insecure that they need the approval of left-wing media?

Were they caught toe-tapping in bathroom stalls (Graham, Lugar?), or in bed with a dead girl or a live boy?

You don’t see the shift the other way where liberal Democrats become conservative. There’s something toxic about D.C.


6 posted on 01/21/2011 4:29:39 AM PST by peyton randolph (There is no such thing as moderate Islam)
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To: marktwain

Coburn got too close to the KoolAid, again.


7 posted on 01/21/2011 4:29:39 AM PST by PubliusMM (RKBA; a matter of fact, not opinion. 01-20-2013: Change we can look forward to.)
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To: marktwain

Dr. Coburn has really gone squishy on us. Disappointing.


8 posted on 01/21/2011 4:41:11 AM PST by Nervous Tick (Trust in God, but row away from the rocks!)
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To: marktwain
Geez, not this sh*t again.

How can ANY self-respecting Republican, Conservative or not, FALL FOR THIS NONSENSICAL GUN CONTROL B.S.?

9 posted on 01/21/2011 4:51:59 AM PST by DocH (Official Right-Wing Extremist Veteran Seal Of Approval)
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To: marktwain
"He is open to revisiting the law," Coburn spokesman John Hart wrote in an e-mail. "His goal is to make sure we have a way to ensure that people who are truly mentally ill and are a threat to themselves or others are not allowed to buy a firearm.

Hey Tom:

Mayhaps you can discuss your ideas with one of the most virulent, anti-2nd Amend (NAZI) Zealots in the Senate (Chuck-you-Schumer) in between singing verses of "Kumbaya" when you cozy up to him during the SOTU address next week?

What are they putting in the water in the Sodom on the Potomac, anyway?

10 posted on 01/21/2011 4:57:06 AM PST by Conservative Vermont Vet ((One of ONLY 37 Conservatives in the People's Republic of Vermont. Socialists and Progressives All))
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To: marktwain

Loughner was not a diagnosed psychotic, this law wouldn’t have stopped the Tuscon shooting.

You’re losing it Coburn, congress doesn’t need to act every time there’s a tragedy like this.


11 posted on 01/21/2011 5:02:38 AM PST by Brett66 (Where government advances, and it advances relentlessly , freedom is imperiled -Janice Rogers Brown)
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To: marktwain

Coburn is a scary dude. He comes to the senate as a no-nonsense conservative. Now after drinking the beltway water he wants to sit koombaya with his buddy Schumer. On top of that now he wants to re-visit the 2nd amendment, not to mention how he’s voted on some controversial bills.


12 posted on 01/21/2011 5:04:50 AM PST by kenmcg
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To: marktwain

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH COBURN ALL OF A SUDDEN? First he wants to sit t the State of the Unionwith Chuck Schumer, the most partisan, belligerent, two-faced, lying SOB in the Senate. NOW, THIS CRAP?

This does not pass the smell test. WHAT DO THEY HAVE ON HIM?????? Photos? emails? men’s room footsie? Something is not right here.


13 posted on 01/21/2011 5:07:20 AM PST by SC_Pete
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To: SC_Pete
“WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH COBURN ALL OF A SUDDEN?”

Senator Coburn has done excellent work. I would not put too much emphasis on a statement by an aid about something that has not happened yet. I suspect that this is an attempt to make Senator Coburn appear as more favorable to what the author wants than what is really the case.

I will wait for more information before I accuse him of moving the wrong way.

14 posted on 01/21/2011 5:11:20 AM PST by marktwain
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To: Nervous Tick

I think he just went through his “bearded marxist” phase.

He shaved it off now, but it looks like it addled his brain.


15 posted on 01/21/2011 5:15:27 AM PST by dforest
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To: marktwain

Sheriff Dipstick is more responsible for the Tucson massacre than any gun control law laxity. He had ample indication that Loughner was unstable. Coburn should not buy into the liberal mindset that wanting a gun is a mental illness. If he wants to investigate whether voting Bolshecrat is a mental illness, have at it.


16 posted on 01/21/2011 5:30:50 AM PST by depressed in 06 (The only thing the ZerO administration is competent at is bad ideas.)
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To: marktwain
I'm just waiting for the bombshell on the psychiatric meds Loughner was on. It'll be explosive against the MSM's patent storyline. Hurry up, Douglas Kennedy, we're all impatiently waiting.

Oops...should I have used a different set of expressions? /sarcasm

17 posted on 01/21/2011 5:31:08 AM PST by philman_36 (Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy. Benjamin Franklin)
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To: marktwain

Coburn’s falling for the RATS “sitting together” scam was big a warning sign to me. The DemonRATS would NEVER have diluted their anti-Bush visual impact on national TV. They made their counter-presence obvious. Sitting together blunts the IMPACT, at least visually, of the November elections. DemonRATS seek power—complete and total power and the suffocation of our rights—not comaraderie. Coburn fell for the trick or he was coerced.


18 posted on 01/21/2011 5:33:21 AM PST by SC_Pete
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To: marktwain
"His goal is to make sure we have a way to ensure that people who are truly mentally ill and are a threat to themselves or others are not allowed to buy a firearm.

That is a dangerous idea right there - far more dangerous than a weapon in an individual's hand. Just who gets to decide who is "mentally ill" or not, and who may be a "threat" to themselves or others? Further, mental illness is not a binary determination. Just how mentally ill, what kind of psychosis etc. will someone have to be before they are judged (yes, judged) to be unfit to own a firearm?

These questions are the heart of the matter. I seriously believe liberals and anyone who ascribes to the liberal philosophy and ideology are mentally ill. Two reasons for that.

First, they promote a system (socialism) that has been proven, yes proven time and again, to be a failure. There are no, nor have there ever been, socialist societies where the populace his happy, prosperous, and free. It just doesn't happen, period. Historical evidence and a dispassionate look at socialism and human nature quickly shows that it will never work. Yet these "liberals" keep promoting socialism and socialistic ideas. That's being disconnected from reality, and that is a mental disorder.

Second, socialism requires fascism to enforce its ideals. Human nature being what it is, no-one really likes the idea of a state entity confiscating their property and the fruits of their labors to redistribute to others - as the state sees fit. Therefore socialism requires a strong, oppressive state to enforce the wonderful {snort} ideals of socialism and collectivism. However, "liberals" will tell you that under socialism we'd all be happy and we'd all rise together on the tide. BS. Again, disconnected from reality - a mental illness. Or they know it is a lie and they are psychotic in that respect.

So I contend, and believe and I can defend (more fully than I have room for here) that "liberals" and leftists are, to no small degree, mentally ill. If we're going to prevent them from owning a firearm because they might hurt themselves or others... Shouldn't we really prevent them from hurting themselves and others via other means too? They should not be allowed to teach, to pass on their mentally deficient ideas and ideals to others. They shouldn't be allowed to make or influence laws that might impose their warped views on others. How's that sound lefty lurkers?

"However," Hart added, "he won’t support any measure that prohibits any American from buying or possessing a firearm without cause."

Hey, snapper head... Read The Bill of Rights. It is not yours (nor the governments') place to infringe on our rights at all. The right to own a firearm is not yours, nor anyone else's, to grant or not grant as you see fit. At best, if the government can show exceptional cause as to why someone should have one of their fundamental rights taken away, then they can be prevented from owning a firearm, or whatever other right the oppressors want to take. Fundamentally though, the burden of proof should be on the government as to why an inalienable right should be taken away. It is the same as trying to take away someone's right to live. I, or anyone else, should not have to prove our inalienable right prior to obtaining a firearm. It is that little concept of "innocent until proven guilty" that forms the basis of our laws. The government should have to prove to me and the seller that I am to be denied my rights. I should not have to prove I have the right.

19 posted on 01/21/2011 5:39:10 AM PST by ThunderSleeps (Stop obama now! Stop the hussein - insane agenda!)
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To: marktwain

Throwing more law and money at negligence solves nothing.


20 posted on 01/21/2011 5:42:25 AM PST by Gene Eric (Your Hope has been redistributed. Here's your Change.)
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