"Wes" wrote in message
...
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

The background-checking system currently in place, but which is only
partially implemented, includes the question of whether one has been
judged
mentally incompetent. So it's already there, Wes.

My read was the poster wanted the testing performed prior to ownership as
opposed to the current situation where one can be disqualified by screwing
up in life and then being adjudicated mentally ill.

Tenses matter.

I'm not sure they do in this case. The government in both cases has defined
what constitutes psychological disqualification. Whether it's a test done
now, or a record of government decisions arrived at previously, the deciding
party is the same: the government.

Lots of pro-gun people have discussed this as a rights issue over the years,
but the large majority -- and I mean really large -- of the US population
believes that it's a common-sense case of a compelling state interest. You
won't find any significant argument against psychological qualification for
gun ownership among the population at large or among serious legal experts,
and I'll bet that's true whether you're talking about a test for
qualification or an examination of records.

You may be assuming that the test would be unfairly harsh, and that may be.
But the "test" is already there, and, as it's presently constituted, it
looks pretty fair.

--
Ed Huntress