Bernie Sanders Defends Obama's Planned Executive Action On Gun Control

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Huffington Post

Jessica Schulberg

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) came out in support of President Barack Obama’s plan to bypass Congress and tighten rules on gun ownership through executive action.

“I would prefer that we could have bipartisan support, but the truth is Republicans are not interested in doing anything about gun safety,” Sanders, a 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.

Sanders, who represents a state once dubbed “gun rights paradise” and who has a mixed voting record on gun control, said that the American people have reached the point where they want action on gun laws.

“The vast majority of the American people are horrified by the mass shootings we have seen. They want action,” said Sanders. “What the president is trying to do now is to expand the instant background check by closing the gun show loophole. I think he’s doing what the American people would like him to do.”

FULL story at link.


CREDIT: CHARLIE NEIBERGALL/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-obama-gun-control_568935b2e4b0b958f65be793

[LiberalArkie]

1. Great News

[onehandle]

2. Bad news for gun culture.

Tick tock tick tock...

[Bernin]

3. I love ya Bernie

But, please avoid that 3rd rail. It's a loser for our side.

[trillion]

4. No, it's not. The majority of us want the loop holes closed, and mandatory mental health checks and

medical checks. We don't let grandpa drive when he is blind, why would we let him own a gun when he has dementia or is suicidal or on drugs that make him wacko including anti-depressants - and yes, we should test his eyesight too if he want to own a gun. Glasses better be up to date.

[HDSam]

5. If I understand you correctly

"...or on drugs that make him wacko including anti-depressants"

your belief is that anti-depressants make people "wacko"?

Interesting.

[passiveporcupine]

6. They can

One of the side effects is making some people suicidal.

[Duckhunter935]

7. I hope they revoke all of those drivers

licenses and have background checks on vehicle purchases, nothing like 2-5 thousand pound weapon.

[HDSam]

8. Yes

they can. I'm more interested in the fact Trillion believes people being treated for depression are "wackos".

[Proserpina]

9. If you have never had to deal with a person deranged by the incorrect dosage level or side effect

then you ought to be silent. I have. It wasn't exactly a picnic. It was damn scary. I feared for us both.

Psychotropic drugs are very powerful, and when the right level is reached, such drugs can save lives.

When the wrong level is hit, everyone's health and safety is in danger.

That's why I for one cannot understand why anyone who did not need a drug would take one, just for "kicks" or the "high" or whatever. You only get one brain in life, don't screw it up!

[HDSam]

15. Then

I guess I don't have to be silent.

Perhaps you ought to ask yourself why I take issue with people being referred to as "wackos" (or loons, nut cases, or crazy for that matter). It might just have something to do with the stigma commonly attached to being treated for a mental health issue and the fact people avoid treatment in the fear they'll be seen as a "wacko".

[trillion]

18. Perhaps you should ask yourself why you can't read a paragrpah without inventing contents.

You are mis-quoting me all over this thread. I find it both dishonest and disturbing. I hope you don't own guns.

[Proserpina]

20. It's the latest DU style, trillion

Rudeness, invention, distortion, and then they alert all over you. I'm told this started with the primary race, and never was like this before.

Used to be a civil place, when I was a lurker, at my mother's knee. Now look at it. Like a low-income, Fox News trailer park.

[trillion]

21. Thank you. Yes, this is the 2nd time I've noticed this here.

[Proserpina]

23. When you have had enough, check this out

http://jackpineradicals.org

[Marty McGraw]

27. I will join there soon too.

Still... Can't beat DU's page layout and their efficiency of getting worthy headlines posted. Spent years here just browsing HL's. I think and hope after the primaries shit may get back to some normalcy around here. Would be awesome if they reset a bunch bans to TO's.

and even if the prior poster took offense, I'm sure most nuts aren't even aware they are nuts, although I have met a number who are aware they are. Just require insurance on all firearms and a good number would choose not to have one. A lot could affect one's premiums.

[trillion]

13. HDSam, no, I did NOT say that. Quit putting words into my mouth. People being treated for depression

should NOT have access to guns though. Depression meds do make people wacko in many cases - a well known fact. Many people have to go through a series of medications to find the right one and the right dose. I know plenty of people that have had issues with depression meds. I know people right now with problems with them. Then there's the problems when they stop taking their meds. Depression should nullify someone being able to have a gun regardless. Mental issues and guns shouldn't mix.

[HDSam]

17. Well hell

"...do make people wacko in many cases".

go ahead and double down, I'm surely not going to stop you.

[trillion]

19. Look, you are severly dishonest in this.

I'm done with you. Your tactics should have you flagged. They are dishonest and disruptive. Good luck trying to fly under the radar. You're failing at it.

[HDSam]

24. Perhaps

we're not communicating effectively so I'll restate - I find your use of the word "wacko" offensive and counter-productive to the goal of removing the stigma associated with mental health treatment.

Call me dishonest, but that word, I don't think it means what you think it means.

[trillion]

25. Welcome to my ignore list. Just keep doing what you're doing and enjoy your short stay.

[HDSam]

26. Short stay?

I've been here over three years now. I'm no DU Methuselah by any means, but I've certainly been here longer than say, May of 2015.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

33. If you live in America 2016 and you don't suffer from depression, you may be a wacko.

[trillion]

14. I'm interested in the fact that you keep twisting my words. How dishonest of you.

[NickB79]

12. That is not exactly accurate

Another theory claims that antidepressants aren’t directly increasing a person’s risk at all. SSRIs endow depressed people with a newfound alertness and proactivity. If someone was suicidal before taking an antidepressant, but unmotivated to act on their urge, the antidepressant only facilitated their latent desires; it didn’t create them. In both cases, a 2004 study argues that it’s within the first nine days of taking antidepressants a person is most at-risk for suicidal thoughts or behaviors.

http://www.medicaldaily.com/why-do-antidepressants-raise-your-suicide-risk-surprising-science-behind-paradoxical-reactions

This was my experience; you NEED a strong counseling support system to compliment drug therapy when fighting depression.

[jen63]

28. Yes! Thank you.

Depression is extremely physically draining and many depressed people simply don't have the energy to act on their suicidal thoughts. The meds give enough energy in the beginning to do it, but haven't yet kicked in enough to knock the depression.

[passiveporcupine]

35. That's interesting.

I hope they continue to look into this, as I am afraid too many people are "labeled" as dangerous to others because of the drugs they take.

I know most gun thumpers would love to blame all mass-shootings on drugs.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

32. That would eliminate about half the population from their 2nd amendment "right".

So you would not let them have a gun, but you'd be fine with giving a gun to someone that never sought help for their depression? I think you've got it backwards.

[passiveporcupine]

36. So it's better to let everyone with mental health issues

Last edited Mon Jan 4, 2016, 05:15 PM - Edit history (1)

run around with guns...just because some of them haven't been diagnosed yet?

Sounds sane to me...NOT!

Elmer, this is one of your more ridiculous posts.

And for the record, nobody said they'd be fine with giving an un-diagnosed mentally ill person a gun. I think those of us who want more serious gun control, want to make it difficult enough to get a gun in the first place, that hopefully mentally ill people (diagnosed or not) would not be able to; from not being able to pass the requirements, to not having the energy to even try to.

Edited to correct whom this was addressed to. Not John...Elmer. Sorry!

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

37. So it's better to let everyone with mental health issues

They already are! But unless you get diagnosed (which many people won't do due to stigma, (or that someone will take their guns)), you can buy as many guns as you want. The people that get help and because of it lead better lives - those are the people you want to keep away from guns.

My name isn't John.

How do you propose getting the guns from the millions of people that have them now with mental illness? Ask them nicely to return their guns because you look like you could be a "wacko"?? I think most gun owners are already wacko.

[passiveporcupine]

39. Sorry about the name mixup

If anyone has a diagnosed mental illness that could make them dangerous to themselves or others due to stopping their medication and/or treatment (which many do), then no, they should not have guns. Even if they are in treatment and on medication.

I don't know how to fix the problem with so many people having guns now that probably shouldn't. It may require a mandatory buy back to get some of them back, and it may require just time of phasing them out as people die off. And I never said we should start a campaign to make only mentally ill people give up their guns...we need to try to get guns back from all the people who have them now that don't have a good reason to have one, and we need to make it harder for anyone to get a gun. In the future there should be ways to try to prevent these slip-ups of guns being sold to people who never should have been able to buy them...like the Aurora theater shooter...he had gotten mental health care and the psychiatrist was worried about him, and yet he was not flagged to not buy weapons...and I'm not sure our background checks are up to par now anyway. We need to limit the kinds of guns that can be sold in the US and the kinds and amounts of ammo.

There are a lot of things that need to happen and it will take time, but I believe the majority of US citizens are heading toward gun controls at least like Australia has...for a start.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

40. "If anyone has a diagnosed mental illness that could make them dangerous to themselves or others..."

Yes, those people should not have guns. Most people on anti-depressants have not been deemed by any authority as dangerous to anyone. I just thought you were using a very wide brush. No matter how you slice it, I think we are in general agreement.

I myself am on anti-depressants. I'm not crazy, as testified by the fact I've never owned a gun, nor would I stay in a location where a gun is being exposed. I do NOT like things around me that can kill me, all based on the intellect of the gun holder.

The people that refuse to get help are the ones we need to worry about. And they are medically untraceable.

[trillion]

11. There are people who get on them that go wacko until they find the "right" meds to straighten them

out and then when they stop meds they often go wacko. I have a few family members with these issues.
People on them at all shouldn't have guns though. If they needs meds for a mental issue including depression, they should not have guns.

[jen63]

29. Is "whacko" a medical term?

It must be, you're using it a lot.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

38. He could be off his meds.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

34. You are very confused about mental illness and depression.

[Babel_17]

30. Good point (nt)

[NickB79]

10. Except the current proposal does not close the gun show loophole

At best, it better clarifies how many guns a person has to sell to be classified as a gun dealer and thus need a federal firearms license. And while this is an important move that I fully support, it is at best a baby step towards universal background checks.

Despite what many want, President Obama clearly does not have the legal authority to enact universal background checks nationwide, or he would have done so by now.

[trillion]

16. Wrong. He's not willing to move us in that direction all at once because of all the gunnuts.

He's taking steps there. We will get there. Popular opinion has massively changed about guns and it it still changing. The real gunnuts won't change but they've already lost. They don't know it yet. Over 60 percent want more gun control now. Eventually we will use the mandate. Kind of hard with a rethug congress but there won't always be a rethug congress.

[NickB79]

41. What sway do the gun nuts hold over a president in his last year of presidency?

What is President Obama afraid of, if he thinks he could legally enact UBC's through executive action? He's not up for re-election, and if the gun nuts hold so much sway that new gun laws could torpedo the next Democratic candidate's presidential bid, then gun control isn't as strong of an issue as you feel it is.

Either way, if Pres. Obama's legal team thought they had a decent chance of UBC's via executive order being upheld by the courts, the President would have done so.

[madville]

22. Doesn't make much sense

“The vast majority of the American people are horrified by the mass shootings we have seen. They want action” ~ Bernie Sanders

None of these proposed changes would have prevented any mass shooting I can think of in the last decade or so. So linking these potential executive actions to mass shooting prevention is somewhat disingenuous.

[ellenrr]

31. this act by Obama is one of the few times he has not disappointed me.. nt