The American Psychiatric Association has an interesting Position Statement on Firearm Access, Acts of Violence and the Relationship to Mental Illness and Mental Health Services. It contains this:

Because privacy in mental health treatment is
essential to encourage persons in need of
treatment to seek care, laws mandating psychiatrists
and other mental health professionals to
report to law enforcement officials everyone who
appears to be a danger to themselves or others are
likely to be counterproductive and should not be
adopted.

Basically they throw the ball back into the gun control court with this:

Many deaths and injuries from gun violence can be
prevented through national and state legislative and
regulatory action. These actions should include:
a. Limiting access to guns by persons who are
identified as dangerous, whether or not they have
been diagnosed with a mental disorder;
b. Requiring more extensive background checks and
waiting periods on all gun sales or transactions;
c. Requiring safe storage of all firearms in the home,
office or other places of daily assembly; and
d. Limiting access to semi-automatic firearms, high
capacity magazines and high velocity ammunition
to reduce risk of critical injuries and death from
firearms;

I wonder what they mean by “Limiting access”. Probably a complete ban or NFA type paperwork and taxes. “High velocity ammunition?” I think that is the first time I have heard that suggestion. I wonder what their threshold is such that they would consider a bullet “high velocity”.

I would like to suggest the APA confine itself to psychiatric issues and leave the gun restriction suggestions to criminologists.

The Seafair Foundation is putting on a 4^th of July celebration at Gasworks Park this Friday.

It takes place at a public park yet they say:

Prohibited Items
-Personal Barbecues
-Marijuana
-Alcohol
-Fireworks, explosives or incendiary materials or devices
-Pets, other than service animals
-Weapons and Firearms
-Glass bottles
-Illegal drugs

Firearm regulation is preempted by the state legislature. The city of Seattle cannot ban firearms in the park (they tried and were slapped down by the courts) but can a 501(c)(3) organization do it? And do they have anything greater than the threat of trespass prosecution if you were to violate their prohibition of the exercise of a specific enumerated right on public property?

I thought this video was funny and made a great point:

What’s the problem with these people? Locking up your gun and ammo is not good enough for them. They don’t want you to have a gun in the house let alone take your kids to the range or teach them gun safety:

This requires ignoring the vast differences between gun culture and dildo culture, because aside from their similarities as surrogate penises, there’s little common ground there. Dildo owners don’t bring their kids along for dildo-using trips, or dildo practice, and you’re not going to rent a dildo at a dildo range and have it jump in your kid’s hand and kill him. Most kids don’t know you have a dildo, and won’t spend every available minute alone looking for it.

These people apparently have a really tough time accepting the right to keep and bear arms is a specific enumerated right and to accept diversity in our culture.