The US government has demonstrated with its No Fly and Selectee Lists, in operation for over a decade, how to deny respect for tens of thousands of individuals’ travel and privacy rights without even the slightest nod to due process protections. Over the last 19 months, the New York government has followed a similar course, using a new “No Guns List” to deny respect for tens of thousands of individuals’ right to keep and bear arms.
New York Times writer Anemona Hartocollis explains in a Sunday Times article that New York state’s 2013 gun control law the Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement (SAFE) Act is facilitating the prohibition of gun ownership and possession for many New Yorkers by compelling physicians, psychologists, registered nurses, and licensed clinical social workers to report to the government the identities of any patients they think are “likely to engage in conduct that would result in serious harm to self or others.”
Hartcollis notes that the vast majority of people thus reported, due to the idiosyncratic determination of a medical worker, are then put on the state’s new ‘No Guns List.’ In just the 19 months since the implementation of this SAFE Act provision, nearly 35,000 individuals have thereby been added to the list.
Continue reading at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.