Sen. Graham Offers Alternative Background Check Bill Backed by NRA

This seems too good to be true...
I wonder if theres an AWB in there somewhere.

I wonder if we can 'compromise' by adding a GCA repeal in there somewhere, eh?

How is this any better than Lautenberg? Will this not also be ex-post-facto, with a lot of people who made pleas in the past having their penalties changed after the fact?

I think his proposal is sound but will be attacked from left and right.

It won't stop a single 'crime'.

If it helps the politicians sleep at night..

As long as the other UBC DOES NOT PASS.

I kind of agree, that I would rather see the gun zombies jump on this decoy than pass UBC, but at the same time, in a few years we would have another bad law we hate just as bad as Lautenberg....and no one but ourselves to blame for it.

How is this any better than Lautenberg? Will this not also be ex-post-facto, with a lot of people who made pleas in the past having their penalties changed after the fact?

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While you may be onto an important possible concern, "not guilty by reason of insanity" is a VERY heavy thing to have on your record. That means you committed a violent crime so heinous that you were going to face something on the order of life in prison or capital punishment -- and you didn't fight that charge! -- but you traded away prison or death for lengthy (probably life-long) involuntary commitment to a secure mental institution.

That's not some misdemeanor charge you got 20 years ago for a little pushing match with your girlfriend or wife, and all of a sudden you're prohibited from buying a gun. That's some seriously scary folks who have been adjudicated to be criminally, murderously, insane.

What seems ironic to me is that I don't see how that's not covered already. (Item "f." on the 4473)

Well, insanity is a legal term, and perhaps you can plead insanity without being diagnosed as mentally ill? Just speculation, I might be wrong. The insanity defense is used in a incredibly small number of cases each year, and is successful even less often.

I would like to read what the bill really says. There is a huge world of difference between pleading not guilty by reason of insanity and actually being found to be not guilty by reason of insanity.

There is a huge world of difference between pleading not guilty by reason of insanity and actually being found to be not guilty by reason of insanity.

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True. However, I'd wager the number of people who've ever plead not guilty by reason of insanity , had that plea rejected, and then gone on to be acquitted of the crime is somewhere between zero and a whole lot less than one. It tends to pretty much ruin your case when you say, "yes I murdered them but I was out of my mind at the time," even if the judge rejects the idea that you couldn't tell right from wrong in the moment of the crime you just admitted to.

Well, insanity is a legal term, and perhaps you can plead insanity without being diagnosed as mentally ill?

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You don't get to make that claim and have it sustained just because you said so. You and your legal team have to prove to the judge that you really are/were insane and that involves having mental health professionals diagnose you as such and testify on your behalf strongly enough that you can be sent to a lifetime under lock and key in a mental facility instead of to the chair or a maximum security prison.

It isn't a "get out of jail free" card. Folks who've plead the insanity defense aren't generally out walking around, and if they are eventually released, they certainly aren't lawful firearms possessors.

The issue with ANY Bill is amendment. The Graham Bill sounds fine now, but what happens when it is amended in Committee or in the House? Then you have Republicans opposing a Bill with "background checks" in the title - also a win in the Democratic "mind "....

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It's a trap, get an axe, anything Lindsay Graham is on board with don't fall for it because SOMETHING is in there that you don't want.

Avenger29 said:

It's a trap, get an axe, anything Lindsay Graham is on board with don't fall for it because SOMETHING is in there that you don't want.

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+1

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People can and do plead "Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity" without being diagnosed with anything. A lot of them probably aren't "criminally insane", at least by the rather heavy legal definition in Texas. That bar is set pretty high, specifically so that people DON'T literally get away with murder.

I do understand the worry of treating someone as insane without a sound medical diagnosis and judicial ruling of such. The difference here is that the insanity plea, as Sam rightly pointed out, is an affirmative defense to a felony crime. It's an admission that an otherwise criminal (usually violent) act was committed by that person.

This is NOT the same as some third party leveling an unproven charge of mental incompetence; proven or otherwise, the person themself has asserted that they were at some point mentally incompetent to the degree that they were incapable of determining the legality, morality, or possibly reality of their actions. A reasonable person might well assume that this does and ought to create a rebuttable presumption that such is still the case.

We aren't going to "punish" anyone because we think they're "crazy"... if they have confessed in open court to being criminally insane, we're merely taking them at their word.

Some bill was passed out of committee today (senate).

Was this it?

Why did he not even attempt to mandate it apply equally to all citizens? e.g. 4473 is the maximum standard for any US citizen to own any federally legal firearm, including those in Washington DC and Chicago?

Sen. Graham Offers Alternative Background Check Bill Backed by NRA

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NO... No more.. the gun owners of this country have time and again accepted restrictions, limitations, denials, of a Constitutionally protected right. The line must be drawn, this far, NO further. We've already given in time and time again to appease the idiotic few. Sometimes you have to STOP accepting compromise after compromise.

Ryanxia said:

If it helps the politicians sleep at night..

As long as the other UBC DOES NOT PASS.

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Amen to that. Don;t let up your guard. keep calling! even to express appreciation to Coburn, etc.

NO... No more.. the gun owners of this country have time and again accepted restrictions, limitations, denials, of a Constitutionally protected right. The line must be drawn, this far, NO further. We've already given in time and time again to appease the idiotic few. Sometimes you have to STOP accepting compromise after compromise.

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So, then, you're in favor of a person who was just found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity being allowed to buy a gun?

I much prefer a compromise in which only persons who admit perpetrating major crimes while insane are affected to one in which we must accept universal background checks with permanent records amounting to back-door registration as an alternative to bans on autoloading weapons and high-capacity magazines.

Hypnogator said:

So, then, you're in favor of a person who was just found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity being allowed to buy a gun?

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The OP never mentioned murder. Statistically speaking, mental illness is not a risk factor for violence. Demonizing the mentally ill is morally equivalent to demonizing gun owners. In any case, I can think of one example off the top of my head in which a person judged NGBROI should not be prohibited: What if someone were unwittingly dosed with a psychoactive drug, and committed assault while hallucinating? They did the crime, while temporarily insane through no fault of their own.

Involuntary committed as a life-long standard for being denied 2nd Amendment rights is a very dangerous precedent. Let's say at age 19 you break up with a girlfriend and very very depressed. From your teenage point of view life is over. You are involuntarily committed for a week by your family and then treated as an outpatient with antidepressants for six months. Now you are 34, wife and kids and life is good but you are forever denied the right to own a gun. This is not an acceptable standard.

See Post #8.

Read it again. And quit hunting boogers and dragging irrelevant "what ifs" into this.