It’s the Gunners not the Guns

By vchal @ Shutterstock.com

In National Review, David French explains the NRA’s latest announcement on gun-violence restraining orders. The focus is on keeping guns out of the hands of those who may be risks to their communities. As I have written, the problem is not the guns, it is the gunners themselves. French writes (abridged):

On Wednesday, the executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action took to NRATV with a critical announcement. The NRA-ILA called on Congress to provide funding for states to adopt so-called “risk protection orders,” another term for the gun-violence restraining order.

A gun-violence restraining order (GVRO) is a remarkably simple and precisely targeted remedy for two forms of gun violence — mass shootings and suicides. As Chris Cox explains, it allows a defined group of people (usually family members, school principals, employers) to petition a local court for an order temporarily removing guns from a person who’s made statements or exhibited behavior indicating they’re a threat to themselves or others.

We also know that the preferred progressive responses — an assault-weapons ban, for example — would serve mainly to unconstitutionally restrict the self-defense options of millions of law-abiding citizens.

Keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people while preserving the right to bear arms for the law-abiding is the essence of constitutional gun policy.