Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Gun rights commentator Colion Noir is taking aim at a proposal from Nebraska Senate candidate Dan Osborn that would require owners of certain semi-automatic rifles to undergo periodic mental health evaluations and re-register their firearms every five years.
In a recent video (see below), Noir argued that the proposal raises serious constitutional questions and, perhaps more importantly, doesn’t appear to address the very crime Osborn used to justify it.
Osborn proposed requiring owners of so-called “assault-style” rifles (including AR-15s, AK-pattern rifles, and similar firearms) to pass a mental health examination every five years and re-register those firearms in order to keep them.
The proposal reportedly surfaced during a town hall event in Omaha.
Table of contents
The Shotgun Problem for Dan Osborn
The centerpiece of Noir’s criticism is what he sees as a major flaw in Osborn’s argument. The Nebraska candidate pointed to a tragic shooting in Crete, Nebraska, involving a 74-year-old man who opened fire on his neighbors before taking his own life.
The problem? The firearm involved was reportedly a shotgun.
“A shotgun. He said it, not me,” Noir noted in the video. “His entire proposal wouldn’t even touch it.”
That point forms the foundation of the argument. If the incident being used to justify additional restrictions involved a firearm outside the scope of the proposed policy, the proposal fails its most basic test.
“His solution wouldn’t have even stopped the one tragedy he’s using to sell it,” Noir said.
Dan Osborn: A Mental Health Test Every Five Years for AR-15s?
The proposal itself has generated plenty of discussion. Owners of covered rifles would be required to periodically pass a mental health evaluation and re-register their firearms in order to maintain lawful possession.
Supporters of similar proposals often argue they are designed to identify individuals who may become dangerous over time.
However, requiring otherwise law-abiding citizens to repeatedly prove their eligibility to exercise a constitutional right turns that right into something contingent on ongoing government approval.
“A right you have to renew every five years isn’t a right,” Noir said. “It’s a subscription.”
Who Gets a Seat at the Table?
Another aspect of the proposal that drew criticism was Osborn’s explanation of how he arrived at the idea.
The Senate candidate said he often looks to law enforcement for guidance on firearms policy because officers routinely deal with gun-related incidents.
Noir pushed back on that reasoning, arguing that constitutional rights belong to citizens generally, not just those who carry firearms professionally.
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He also questioned Osborn’s claim that a gun owner he spoke with had no objection to the concept of periodic mental health evaluations and re-registration requirements.
“A sample size of one,” Noir joked.
The commentator contrasted that anecdote with criticism from the Nebraska Firearm Owners Association, which reportedly described the proposal as an attack on individual liberty and noted that it represents more than 26,000 members across the state.
The Bigger Debate on Mental Health Tests
At its core, the dispute reflects a broader disagreement that has become increasingly common in the gun-control debate.
Supporters of additional firearm regulations often argue that periodic reviews, licensing requirements, and registration systems are common-sense measures intended to keep firearms out of dangerous hands.
But such requirements place burdens on people who have done nothing wrong while doing little to stop determined criminals.
Of course, the more immediate issue is whether the proposal addresses the problem it claims to solve. If the crime being used to justify the policy involved a shotgun, while the policy targets rifles, then supporters of the proposal still have work to do explaining how one connects to the other.
At the end of the day, though, proposals like this are less about one type of firearm and more about establishing a precedent. As Noir pointed out, today it’s AR-15s. Tomorrow it could be shotguns, handguns, or hunting rifles.
Once government gains the authority to decide who must periodically requalify to keep exercising a constitutional right, the debate quickly becomes bigger than any single gun.
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We should require all candidates for Congress to pass a mental exam prior to putting their name on the ballot. If they indeed pass the test be required another test every 3 yrs they work for the public. They (politicians) really do seem to to be mentally challenged now. We should care for their mental health , at their expense of course. You must have mental license to operate a Congressional seat !
Obviously, this would all be paid for by the gubmint, right? And not paid for by the plebe gun owner. Right?
If they really believe this is constitutional then a very simple amendment which states that any member of the Nebraska congress or sennant who votes for this, and the governor who signs it are immediately and permanently banned from holding any public office anywhere in the country when, not if, it is deemed to be unconstitutional.
I think our elected and appointed employees should not only be made to take an
annual mental evaluation, but they should also be made to give an annual financial disclosure every year! Let’s make that a law right away!
How about drug tests, IQ TESTS AND HIGH SCHOOL EQUIVALENCY TESTS FOR CONGRESS?
Just another example of a progressive democrat politician attempting to CONTROL every aspect of his would be subjects lives. I guess we’ll need mental fitness evaluations on media personnel, clergy and any other public speakers and have them examined every 5 years to see if they can exercise their 1st Amendment right the way he sees fit. We DO NOT NEED A GD politician to decide which Constitutional rights we the people may exercise!!!! CONTROL,CONTROL, CONTROL!!!
Yes sure like when gun forums ban the 1st Amendment because it does not tow their Far Right Party line.
Or when Herr Drumpf (The Donald) destroyed Public Broadcasting because he feared the “other side of the story” being leaked to the American People.
Or Herr Drumpf’s (The Donald’s) all out effort to restrict voting rights by banning or restricting mail in voting, taking half the mail sorting machines out of use, and shutting down poling centers in poor sections of town.
Or making sex slaves out of women by forcing them to have unwanted children.
Or executing White people in broad daylight in Minnesota protesting Herr Drumpf’s Storm Troopers that invaded their city and started invading homes without search warrents.
Or Herr Drumpf’s Storm Trooper thugs stopping people at random on the streets and screaming in their faces “Papers or we will blow your head off”. Even the Far Right Fanatic Joe Rogan went into shock. Now you know how out of control Herr Drumpf and his Nazi thugs have become.
Or starting Middle East Wars without authorization from Congress and claiming (Herr Drumpf) that he has absolute power over the American People and the entire World.
That Herr Hauptmann brf is controlling people. Or is all of this way over your head??????
Okay, gotta ask, since we’re using “nazi” terminology:
The correct name for the “nazi” party was the nsdap, which translated to the national socialist German workers party.
The “modern” democratic party has “joined forces” (been hijacked?) by socialists….. socialists that hate the “children of israel”, so to speak.
As someone who is outspoken as you are about being “left wing”, where do you stand on this sir?
Just an honest question, not a “gotcha” moment.
A better Idea would be to require Mental Health exams every election cycle for anyone serving on elected legislative bodies. All Federal, State & Local Legislators Congress, Senators both Federal & State as well as County and City Council Members, should be required to provide a proof of good mental health before being allowed to be on the ballot. Makes as much sense as this guy’s proposal.
How about periodic mental exams for elected officials?
The left is trying to breach a solidly red state with d-smokers like this “workingman.”
But if you are going to make a right conditional on mental health…..
I propose re-registering very voter every five years. With a literacy and American history test.
My feelings?
If Congress thinks that gun owners need to take mental acquity tests-fine. Just as long as they are required to take the same tests from the same doctor.
And who gets to pick the doctor? Yeah, doesn’t that throw a wrench in the works.
This wannabe Congress person should re-evaluate his own mental health first.
What a fucking idiot.
That’s exactly right. This idiot is trying to open a huge smelly can of worms that he and his fellow politicians will regret later.
All political candidates should be required to pass mental health exams, AND background checks too, since even background checking is not required of all or any them.
… NOTICE THAT IT IS THE CIVILIANS WHO WOULD BE REQUIRED TO GO THRU THESE MENTAL EXAMS, BUT NOT THE POLICE.
IF THESE “ASSAULT WEAPONS” ARE SUCH NASTY DEVICES, THEN WHY WOULD ANY GOVERNMENT, BE THEY LOCAL, STATE, OR FEDERAL, .. ALLOW THESE WEAPONS TO BE USED AGAINST THE CIVILIAN POPULACE …
… THE TRUTH IS THE DEMOCRATS DON’T WANT AR-15 STYLE RIFLES IN THE HANDS OF THE POPULACE BECAUSE IT GIVES POWER TO THE CIVILIANS IN CASE THE GOVERNMENT TRIES TO BECOME AN AUTHORITARIAN STYLE ENITY . .. WHICH IS REALLY WANT THE DEMOCRATS WANT AS THE FORM OF FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IN THE USA.
… BUT LET ME ASK THOSE OPPOSED TO THESE WEAPONS .. : WHAT STYLE FIREARM HAS “NOT” EVER BEEN USED IN BY THE MILITARY OR IN ANY WAR ??? LET ME HELP YOU WITH THE ANSWER, … IT’S NONE !!!!
… EVERY STYLE OF FIREARM IN THE MARKET TODAY HAS BEEN USED BY THE MILITARY SOMEWHERE. FROM ANCIENT CHINESE PIPE STYLE THAT SHOT ROCKS, TO TODAYS MODERN FIREARMS. THEY ALL HAVE BEEN USED IN WAR AND BY THE MILITARY. … SO “NO”, … DON’T TRUST THE DEMOCRATS OR ANY POLITICIAN THAT WOULD CONTROL WHAT A LEGAL AMERICAN CIVILIAN CAN OWN & USE UNDER OUR CONSTITUTIONAL 2A RIGHT. … THEIR PURPOSE IS EVIL AGAINST AMERICAN CITIZENS AND NOTHING LESS.
This goes out to the people in the great state of Nebraska. Time to send Mr Osborn and his Mental Health Problems packing! This moron does not understand the simple facts laid out in the Constitution. These types of anti 2nd COMMIE SYMPATHISERS do not belong in American Govt.
I think it would make more sense to require both sitting Congressmen/Senators and candidates to undergo tests like this prior to the start of the election/re-election period.
I’ve been saying that for years. No political candidates are required to take ANY mental health testing, and that needs to be fixed.
The same goes for background checking too which political candidates are also NOT required to do. Mentally ill politicians cause much more damage to society and are much more dangerous than any single private citizen. This guy is a classic example of mental illness projection, who projects his mental illness onto others. He is the first one that needs a mental health test, and a background check too!
Re-registration is stupid an unnecessarily expensive but let us look further into the concept.
All civilized nations require mental health tests, registration, safety training, safe storage, and knowledge of the States gun laws. The results prove their systems work and work far, far, better than the U.S. where anyone can buy a deadly weapon no questions asked 365 days a year which of course is pure insanity except of course to the sicko paranoids. No other industrialized nations guns down 45,000 people a year, of which 1,500 of them are children. But in Capitalvania were paranoia and blind greed rule even the lives of children are sacrificed on the depraved altar of zero gun control.
Even the majority of Republicans when surveyed agree America has an out of control gun problem. Other countries as in Europe are awash in privately owned firearms yet they have registration plus strict gun control and their homicide and mass murder rates are far, far, below the insanity found in Capitalvania where life is considered cheap and expendable.
your database is corrupt and your spewing bad info!
Show me your stats genius boy. You cannot because history is on my side.
pink ammo goes in purple guns purple ammo don’t go in pink guns.
European nations have homogeneous (mostly-white) high-trust cultures with strong work ethics which is why institutions like public health care and regulated gun possession, to a degree, work. You are correct that Europe is awash in guns – many many illegally owned as one does not get through two world wars without lots of guns staying in private hands – as I spent three years there immersed in their gun culture. They just don’t shoot each other. Except in places where low-culture immigration demographics prevail.
Malmo, Sweden and Chicongo have lots in common.
I suggest an alternative. Statistically analyze US demographics. See which population sub-groups are most inclined to crime. Then levy the restrictions on them. And leave the rest of us who are civilized, alone.
quote—————-I suggest an alternative. Statistically analyze US demographics. See which population sub-groups are most inclined to crime. Then levy the restrictions on them. And leave the rest of us who are civilized, alone.———–quote
Yes that worked out really well in Hitlers Germany. Ask the Jews of Germany how well Hitlers prohibition on Jews owning guns worked out for them. Once you start banning one group of people from owning guns the slippery slope soon bans everyone but the Nazi Elite from owning them. The Far Right would love that.
And by the way your plan would only work with draconian gun registration on all weapons which I am sure you never even thought about.
Gee you have changed your tune a bit from past posts. New curriculum in Soros online troll school?
The diff between your original post, and my response, is you were serious.
Dacian, George Soros here. Did you get this week’s check yet? You’re a good comrade buddy!
Dacian,
America is unique, certainly. I’ll happily take our freedom over European authoritarianism. They have homicides just like we do…the difference is that here, a citizen is afforded the means to defend himself.
As to your stats, I noticed that you conveniently neglected to mention that on average, half of the annual firearm-related deaths are suicides. Yes, this is a problem, but the answer to deaths of despair isn’t gun control…the answer is to get off social media, go outside and touch grass, and engage with one’s community.
Finally, we have training, registration, and police monitoring of motor vehicles…and yet, they somehow manage to kill more Americans than guns do, every single year. Want to get rid of cars? Fine; you first.
Bottom line: you just don’t like guns or freedom. How about you move somewhere that features less of both, rather than trying to force your dystopian vision on the rest of us? I hear Beijing is lovely…
Unlike you Hardcore I do not suffer from advanced paranoia therefore I can think clearly and critically. I am not anti-gun in the least and I would not doubt if you own even 10% of the firearms I do. I bought my first firearm in 1962 and I had a Daisy BB gun in 1957.
I, unlike you, and the other Far Right paranoid lunatics realize we do indeed have a serous gun problem in the U.S. but unlike you and the fanatics on the Far Right I am willing to do something about it and try to keep deadly weapons out of the hands of criminals, lunatics, and Herr Drumpf’s Insurrectionists that came close to overthrowing the U.S. Government on Jan 6th and establishing a Right Wing Jackbooted dictatorship which I am sure makes you salivate over.
In the U.S. you can actually walk out of prison, cross the street to the nearest flea market or gun show and buy all the second hand firepower you want, no questions asked except “give me the money pal, give me the money”. That is pure lunacy. Another dead nuts reason for Universal Background checks.
Your depraved idea of guns and freedom is zero gun control. You look the other way when 1,500 children die each year from gun violence and suicide and accidents and 45,000 Americans also do. No other industrialized nation puts up with such insanity.
If registration, safety training, mandatory safe storage and universal background checks and mental tests took away gun rights other people in other nations would not own very many guns. None of this is correct. People in Europe and Asia do indeed own firearms. In Japan contrary to Right Wing ignorance and propaganda they can and do own semi-auto center fire rifles and shotguns. I personally saw a group of Japanese deer hunters with FN BAR sporting semi-auto rifles as well as bear hunters with shotguns and of course Skeet shooting is very much loved in Japan. It is true handguns are banned. Japanese gun laws are tough but they work and work well. They have mandatory safety training, mandatory knowledge of gun laws, safe storage laws and mental tests and criminal background checks.
And here is one for you. I worked with a man who was corresponding with a very attractive Asian girl and he asked about gun ownership in her country (he was thinking about marrying her and moving there). He was floored when she sent him pictures of herself with numerous brand new fully automatic firearms which here in Capitalvania we are not allowed to own (unless they are the grandfathered shot out, worn out weapons in personal collections when President Reagan banned all new sales of automatic firearms). The point being that Registration and tough gun laws do not always mean confiscation because she had plenty of brand new full auto firearms.
As far as you mentioning suicide. It is well known firearms death rates are astronomically higher when a handgun is present in the home.
In fact a First Responder told me “I have saved many people who tired to commit suicide by drowning , deliberate prescription drug overdose, hanging, slitting wrists, but I have never saved one who blew his or her brains out”.
I mention this because the Far Right in their paranoia do not realize far , far, more people die by suicide or spousal murder or gun accidents in the home than by an intruder that broke into their homes. In fact that is extremely rare. That is why red flag laws, safe storage laws, and mental tests can be very useful tools in bringing the U.S. gun death rate down much lower, something the paranoia of the Far Right would never allow. You cannot reason with sick people, any psychiatrist will attest to that. Again all civilized nations have such laws.
Notice that I “did not” mention banning guns at all but only having common sense gun laws that have been adopted decades and decades ago by civilized nations whose death rates and mass murder rates are dramatically lower than ours. Any sane person can understand this because its not rocket science.
“other countries as in Europe are awash …”
I guess that’s not AI generated.
Why do you capitalise State?
Which countries in Europe have private firearm ownership rates that are remotely close to those found in the US? Are there any beyond maybe Switzerland? Don’t some European countries require privately owned firearms to be stored at government maintained armories? The comparisons feel uneven at best.
quote———-Don’t some European countries require privately owned firearms to be stored at government maintained armories? ——quote
None that I am aware of. Some do require you belong to a gun club or hunting organization. Not to mention safe storage laws, Universal background checks, mental tests, firearms training and bans on carrying guns in public so you can shoot it out over a few pennies in your wallet or an insult directed at you. They do not want their streets running rivers of blood as it is in the U.S. where life is considered cheap and expendable, especially those of children even when they are sitting in school.
quote————-Which countries in Europe have private firearm ownership rates that are remotely close to those found in the US?———–quote
I can see you never were in Europe of even Asia. There are many gun shows in Europe that have tables and tables full of privately owned firearms for sale but you do not plunk your cash down and walk out the door as they have plenty of gun laws and paperwork to go through before a purchase is permitted and this is how civilized countries to it.
I had a work friend who was corresponding with an Asia girl and because he was thinking of marrying her and moving there he asked what kind of gun laws they had there and he almost fainted when she sent him pictures of her numerous brand new full auto weapons she owned. And remember your Lord God President Reagan banned the sale of new full auto weapons in the U.S.
democrats should be required to take mental health exams!