Those who advocate for “reasonable” gun control measures typically overlook the overreach that our incompetent bureaucracy would have to engage in to enforce such measures. As this case illustrates, when the government grabs guns, even in error, getting them back could be a nightmare:
A decorated retired New York cop who served in the U.S. Navy is challenging New York’s tough new SAFE Act gun control law, claiming in a lawsuit that his guns were confiscated after he was mistakenly diagnosed as mentally unstable after he sought treatment for a sleeping problem.
Donald Montgomery’s lawsuit contends that Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other state officials violated his Second Amendment rights when his guns were seized after a brief hospital stay for insomnia. Montgomery, a cop for 30 years and a U.S. Navy veteran, brought the lawsuit in Rochester Federal Court on Dec. 17, according to the Daily Caller.
The SAFE Act became law with little public debate after Cuomo convinced lawmakers that New York needed to do something after the mass shooting at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Conn.
Montgomery was the owner of four guns — a Colt .38 handgun, a Derringer .38, a Glock 26 9-mm. and a Smith & Wesson Bodyguard 380.
His troubles started when he visited a Long Island hospital in May complaining of insomnia. He was discharged with a diagnosis of “depression, insomnia” and then returned a short time later for a 48-hour stay. The lawsuit says that during that visit, staff erroneously listed him as an “involuntary admission,” triggering the SAFE Act reporting provision. Those deemed at-risk for owning guns by mental health professionals have to be reported and their names entered into a database.
The lawsuit claims Montgomery should not have been reported because he was not a threat to himself or others. The suit says a hospital psychiatrist told him “You don’t belong here” and “I don’t know why you were referred here.”
It would be hard for even the most ardent gun grabber to argue that Donald Montgomery isn’t qualified to have a gun. Quite the opposite. Montgomery’s record suggests that he’d be the first person you would want protecting the citizenry in the event of some sort of violent crisis. And yet now, due to sloppy, poorly enforced, rushed gun legislation, he remains unarmed.
AAN Staff
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