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The Baltimore Sun lambasted Sen. Richard Burr’s (R-NC) proposed S. 669 — Veterans’ Second Amendment Protection Act — in an editorial called “Guns and the mentally ill” published on Nov. 16.
The next day, it was forced to post a retraction. Actually, the paper’s editorialists didn’t write the retraction, Burr did in a blistering point-by-point rebuke that, essentially, exposed The Sun’s opinion-mongers’ as being heavy on the opinion, but light on the facts.
“Just as the public expects elected officials to read the text of bills before they pass judgment on them, your editorial board should do the same. Yet it is clear that you did not read S. 669, the ‘Veterans’ Second Amendment Protection Act,’ before you published your editorial ‘Guns and the mentally ill,'” Burr wrote.
Here’s the text of the bill in its entirety: “In any case arising out of the administration by the Secretary of laws and benefits under this title, a person who is mentally incapacitated, deemed mentally incompetent, or experiencing an extended loss of consciousness shall not be considered adjudicated as a mental defective under subsection (d)(4) or (g)(4) of section 922 of title 18 without the order or finding of a judge, magistrate, or other judicial authority of competent jurisdiction that such person is a danger to himself or herself or others.”
Burr continued: “Nothing in my bill exempts veterans from the Brady Act, nor does it seek to provide guns to the mentally ill. Rather, it requires a judicial process to be used as a condition for satisfying the Brady requirements. Veterans — those who fought in defense of our freedoms — are the only recipients of federal benefits who are automatically deprived of a constitutional right solely because they’ve been appointed a fiduciary, regardless of the reason.”
For more, go to: https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/readersrespond/bal-barrletter1117//,0,1252483.story
And here is an example of how anti-Second American facists, such as John Byrne of Raw Story, jumped onto the Baltimore Sun’s bandwagon without looking where they leaped:
— GOP amendment allows ‘mentally incapacitated’ vets to buy guns; https://rawstory.com/2009/11/gop-amendment-mentally-incapacitated-vets-buy-guns/