Colorado's representative McCann has delayed the introduction of her firearms and mental health bill. Weeks back she planned to introduce it but somehow that was quietly postponed, and now she's holding it up for "extensive revisions".
Since no bill is actually published, I can only go by summations. That being said, her idea is to give mental health professionals the power to put someone on the prohibited persons list, at least temporarily.
No jury, no judge, just the word of a psychologist, or psychiatrist, or counselor.
I think - and this is pure speculation - that they were hoping to get bipartisan support on this one, but the abandoning of due process is objectionable to the Colorado republicans, so she's trying to re-write it, or at least re-phrase it, to get at least a few republicans to vote yes.
Course, it could be that the delay was caused by the bill referencing New York City laws which would be amended, so she's taking some time to replace those with the numbers of Colorado statutes. Considering the sloppiness of the folks on Bloomie the Hut's staff who wrote the last half dozen Colorado gun owner control laws, it wouldn't surprise me.
At this point I wouldn't want the Colorado republicans to agree to anything the democrats here (and in NYC and D.C.) proposed, even something seemingly as harmless as a "task force" to "study" an issue (which is allegedly part of this bill). They should just say "Hell No!" to everything, even what to order for lunch.
With any luck time will run out and this bill will never be introduced. Considering how my luck usually goes though I'm not holding my breath. I would worry that the republicans somehow go along with some part of this bill, for some misguided sense of "doing something about violence".
Again, I can't say too much without having the bill in front of me, but as insolent and condescending a public servant as McCann is there won't be anything good to come out of anything she introduces.
Posted by Publicola at April 4, 2013 09:53 PM | TrackBack