How the Government Will Track and Ultimately Confiscate Guns

With President Obama’s new executive action, these “unnecessary legal barriers” have been removed. On its face, the regulation doesn’t require anyone to disclose this information, and merely allows certain entities that “are responsible for the involuntary commitments or other adjudications” to submit this information to the federal database. But on page 38 of the rule, HHS notes that “this final rule does not preempt State or other laws that may require reporting to the NICS.”

In English, that means that while the executive action does not require entities to report this information, progressive states are free (and indeed invited!) to mandate that doctors collect and report this information. Along with the president’s press conference Tuesday, Attorney General Loretta Lynch sent letters to 50 governors “permitting” them to report the names and information of such individuals from their states to the federal government. The NICS database can be expanded by leaps and bounds, through the actions of cooperative states, without the need for any congressional action.

Supporting governors can take a hint. In 2012, the Empire State enacted a law that requires doctors to report to authorities any patient “likely to engage in conduct that would result in serious harm to self or others.” After that initial report, a state bureaucrat who never visits with the patient adds him or her to a list of people prohibited from buying guns. The New York Times characterized the procedure, devoid of any due process of law, as “rubber-stamping.” In less than two years, nearly 40,000 people were added to the list. Beyond the lack of constitutional safeguards prior to extinguishing a fundamental right, doctors are ill-equipped to make this sort of determination of constitutional dimensions without any judicial process.

The Times noted that “the vast majority of people with mental illnesses are not violent. Accurately predicting whether someone will be violent, they said, is also a highly fraught process.” This is especially true where there is mandatory reporting. Risk-averse doctors who fear being sanctioned have every incentive to be over-inclusive and to report names even if there is the slightest inkling of harm. This says nothing of the fact that it may stigmatize those with mental-health issues and chill their willingness to confide in their doctors. Beyond expanding the scope of prohibited gun owners, the president’s executive action also has the potential to restrict the types of guns people can buy.

Beyond expanding the scope of prohibited gun owners, the president’s executive action also has the potential to restrict the types of guns people can buy. One of his executive orders directs the federal government to “promote the use and acquisition of new [gun] technology.” These so-called “smart guns” require a fingerprint scanner or a radio-frequency identification tag to be near the gun, before it will fire. During his press conference, the president joked, “If we can set it up so you can’t unlock your phone unless you’ve got the right fingerprint, why can’t we do the same thing for our guns?”