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Missouri gives list of permit holders to Federal agency
Story here.
"The list was given to the Social Security Administration Office of Inspector General, Schaefer said he was told.
“Apparently from what I understand, they wanted to match up anyone who had a mental diagnosis or disability with also having a concealed carry license,” Schaefer said. "
SSI? IG? There is the (Federal) Privacy Act, which requires every agency to publish annually a list of its databases. I doubt this list of 100,000+ people was published by SSI. The IG is supposed to investigate "fraud, waste, and abuse." The only connection I can even speculate is the IG wanted to call anyone with a mental disability and tell them (incorrectly in many cases) that they can't own guns, in hopes they would give up their (rather tiny) pension.
Of course there's the more likely motive: someone in the SSI IG judged that harassing gun owners would get him brownie points with the boss at his annual job assessment. In this case the boss is ... well, the IG reports directly to the head of the Department.
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That move is rightly sure to tick off a whole bunch of folks.
See this more detailed and much more damming report from testimony by the Highway Patrol Superintendent, I think today. The second quote includes a marvelous "dog ate my homework" spin attempt:
Replogle said a St. Louis-based investigator in the inspector general’s office of the U.S. Social Security Administration contacted the state Highway Patrol in November 2011 seeking a list of Missouri’s concealed gun permit holders for a probe into whether people were fraudulently claiming mental illnesses to get disability benefits. People with mental illnesses are not supposed to be issued concealed gun permits, so their inclusion on the state’s list could indicate they either weren’t mentally ill or shouldn’t have a concealed gun, Replogle said.
[That's not true of Missouri CCW law, ignoring the fact that any US localities CCW is valid for a resident (a provision to get around the obstructionism of St. Louis and maybe Kansas City).]
He said the patrol obtained the concealed gun permit list and provided it on a disc, but the federal investigator was unable to read it and so destroyed it. This January, the same investigator made the same request and the patrol again obtained and shared a computer disc containing information about 163,247 people with concealed gun permits. But Replogle said the federal investigator again was unable to read data and again destroyed the disc.
Nor'Easter: problem in NJ is that the Judges are just as bad as the legislators. So I would not count on the courts for anything but a rubber stamp
Everything is very open with a precise description
of the challenges. It was definitely informative.
Your website is very useful. Thank you for sharing!
Reading the latest gun proposals coming out of NJ it's pretty obvious where they're going. While we've been busy worrying about magazines and such the grabbers have been doing an end run.
They can't challenge the 2nd Amendment directly, so it's on to Plan B. Gobs of ridicules regulations to entrap the unwary and wear out the faint hearted. Lots of room for bureaucratic add ons.
The latest demands for "seizure" of any firearms owned - based on mental health reports, taking a wrong prescription drug or somebody thinking you're acting screwy is particularly disturbing.
They intend to get people used to this - the round ups - and then extend it to include just about anything including a late payment on a Visa bill. Anyone who resists it painted as a dangerous lunatic who cares nothing about the children..
What to do about this? Since the sound of these Trojan Horses appeals to the public it is harder to fight every last dopey nuance with politics. Fortunately we still have the Bill of Rights, so the main cure is the courts. A general finding of "undue burden" is what's needed - get rid of a bunch of them at once.
Even judges not so interested in gun rights may be offended by the basic injustice of these laws as well as a violation of the patient-doctor privilege and "due process".
This must be fought immediately before a bunch of this stuff slips through.