During a Thursday Senate Judiciary Committee meeting, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., argued against including an amendment that would exempt veterans from her proposed assault weapons ban.
Feinstein opined that returning veterans should not be exempted due to the possibility of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. She did note, however, that government agencies were exempted in the previous 10-year ban, which included active military. In other words, government personnel could own the restricted firearms — individuals not associated with the government could not.
…this adds an exemption of retired military. As I understand our bill, no issue has arose in this regard during the 10 years the expired ban was effect… and what we did in the other bill was exempt possession by the United States or a department or agency of the United States… that included active military.
The problem with expanding this is that you know with the advent of PTSD, which I think is a new phenomenon as a product of the Iraq War, it’s not clear how the seller or transferrer of a firearm covered by this bill would verify that an individual was a member, or a veteran, and that there was no impairment of that individual with respect to having a weapon like this.
So you know I would be happy to sit down with you again and see if we could work something out but I think we have to — if you’re going to do this, find a way that veterans who are incapacitated for one reason or another mentally don’t have access to this kind of weapon.
Feinstein’s remarks not only mirror those made by Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano last year when she described returning veterans as “right-wing extremists,” but they were also inaccurate.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada has noted that any ban on so-called assault weapons would have very little chance of being approved in the Senate, and that it would have almost no chance whatsoever in the House.
Read more at Vision to America.