The President is deputizing medical and mental health professionals who will be expected to betray to government and law enforcement authorities, the status of any American regarding gun ownership. This should strike terror in the soul of those who might rely on those professionals at one point or another in his life. All arguments about Constitutionality aside, turning medical providers into a network of government spies will be deadly.
Take, for example, the military. I have a Ph.D. in Human and Organizational Development, so I am a mental health professional turned talk show host who lives in a military city. In my work, I have observed that the first concern of those really needing help, is confidentiality. I have examined the suicide phenomena among our soldiers. It is remarkably high and climbing. It does not take a professional degree to conclude that our troops might not want to confide in a mental health professional for fear of losing their military position. To seek help is to risk losing your fundamental right to defend and provide for your family, or even to work. The precursor to this liberalism was the Fort Hood massacre of American soldiers by a radical Islamist. Our bravest deserve the best, and certainly better than to be sent like lambs to slaughter.
Under Obama's new E.O., not only is your confidentiality gone, but your mental or medical professional must have you locked up if she deems you a potential risk. Does that make you feel safer? Really?
Consider for a moment the rape victim who has fantasies about killing her rapist. One might consider that a normal reaction to a violent crime perpetrated on an innocent victim, but it is not for that mental or medical health professional to decide any longer. Now, it would be their duty to report if there is the slightest suggestion of violence.
Mental and medical professionals already have a "duty to report." That means, that in their best judgment, if they feel their patient might do harm to themselves, or others, they must report it. Then it is up to law enforcement to work with other professionals, based upon their experience and breadth of knowledge, to make an estimation as to the risk to the public, and that individual.
Under Obama's proposed rules, if you go into a medical office and look shaken enough to be violent, they have the power to have you arrested for it. What if you mention your affiliation with a certain church, political group, or gun member association that the "health professional" considers "violent?"
The reality is that the calculating criminal will know better than to seek professional help. The problem for mental health professionals used to be getting criminally dangerous people into the system in the first place. Now, the person with a criminal bent, the economically desperate disgruntled employee, the estranged wife, or the bullied student will be less likely to go for professional help, and more likely to get to the boiling point and actually commit a crime. Add to that explosive equation that law abiding citizens will be less likely to be trained and armed with defensive weapons, and this is a formula for murder.
This assault on our Constitutional rights is unprecedented, unrestrained, poorly researched, and destructive. The blood of those who most certainly will die due to this irresponsible Presidential edict will be on the hands of this Administration, on those who are complicit in the politics of this feel good measure, and those who sit idly by watching their freedoms dissipate.
Medical professionals are taught, "First, do no harm." Mental health professionals are taught empathy, compassion, and best treatment measures. How can any of them honestly look in the face of someone hurting so badly that they have "bad thoughts" and say they can help them while at the same time knowing they now have a greater duty to the community than the patient? A nation reeling in the aftermath of horrific attacks is naturally looking for solutions. Policy should never be made in fear and reaction to isolated events. Unfortunately, this is exactly when the left makes their most onerous policy pushes, never letting a crisis go to waste. Americans are usually loathe to give up their individual liberties for the sake of the community. We are ruled by an administration that hails from the farthest reaches of the radical left where the community comes first.
Americans, especially parents of school aged children are anxious for solutions. There are ways to improve safety based on solid research, but the President suggested none of them. The Administration’s policy may sound good, until one considers the plight of the depressed soldier, or the parent of an autistic child who has to purge every gun from his home. Medical and mental health providers duties should be first to the patient. This policy has reversed that, giving agents of the state a higher duty to the community than the patient. It will have dramatically chilling consequences and will result in more deaths. This policy cannot stand.
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