Executive Orders

My take on the news of the day. I don't profess to be an expert, and I welcome any constructive and civilized discussion.

• Address legal barriers in health laws that bar some states from making available information about people who are prohibited from having guns. Sounds great on the surface, but who decides what information is released? And what information would count as ‘needing to be released”?
   
• Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system. OK.
   
• Make sure that federal agencies share relevant information with the background check system. OK, I guess. Does that mean the Veterans Administration should share information about veterans who may have PTSD or may suffer from depression? I am concerned about where that could lead.
   
• Direct the attorney general to work with other agencies to review existing laws to make sure they can identify individuals who shouldn't have access to guns. Sure, we can identify them. But how do you keep some street thug from acquiring any weapon that they want? You can’t.
   
• Direct the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other research agencies to conduct research into the causes and prevention of gun violence. OK. But let’s also do research into the causes and prevention of all sorts of violence, including domestic violence, that involves knives, bare hands, and other weapons. Let’s also fund CDCP to conduct other research into what hurts and kills Americans, like disease and other injuries.
   
• Clarify that no federal law prohibits doctors or other health care providers from contacting authorities when patients threaten to use violence. OK, as long as they have threatened violence, not because they have some sort of mental disease. While we are at it, let’s clarify that attorney-client privilege does not prevent an attorney from releasing the same information.
   
• Give local communities the opportunity to hire up to 1,000 school resource officers and counselors. Sounds great. But who is going to pay for it? The federal government does not have the money (well, they do, but they will not release it from other pet projects), the state does not have the money (see the same dilemma with the federal government), and local governments don’t have it since they are already strapped with trying to provide basic service now to the citizens.
   
• Require federal law enforcement to trace all recovered guns. OK.
   
• Propose regulations that will enable law enforcement to run complete background checks before returning firearms that have been seized. So if they seize a firearm, why did they seize it? Did they not investigate it then?
   
• Direct the Justice Department to analyze information on lost and stolen guns and make that information available to law enforcement. OK.
   
• Provide training for state and local law enforcement, first responders and school officials on how to handle active-shooter situations. Not sure where the money is going to come from, but if we are going to do that, let’s not make it an option. Make sure that the lessons learned in Columbine and Aurora and other incidents are applied to ensure that local agencies are able to take the necessary steps to address these situations.
   
• Make sure every school has a comprehensive emergency management plan. OK. This sounds like basic common sense, anyway.
   
• Help ensure that young people get needed mental health treatment. Just young people? How about make sure that mental health treatment is available to anyone who needs it and stop the wholesale dismantling of mental health care programs, like what has happened in my home state.
   
• Ensure that health insurance plans cover mental health benefits. It all comes back to money and who is going to pay for it. However, a lot of the people that I have encountered over the years that needed mental health treatment were/are uninsured.
   
• Encourage development of new technology to make it easier for gun owners to safely use and store their guns. OK. As long as that technology does not enable ‘Big Brother’ to monitor what citizens can legally do.
   
• Have the Consumer Product Safety Commission assess the need for new safety standards for gun locks and gun safes. As long as these new standards do not interfere with a legitimate gun owner’s need to rapidly access their firearms when someone who has elected to not observe and comply with our existing gun laws tries to enter their home or business and do them harm.
   
• Launch a national campaign about responsible gun ownership. OK. Add it to all of the other national campaigns.