Recently, State Senator Kevin Parker and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams released a draft of gun legislation that would require concealed carry permit applicants to submit social media passwords as part of the vetting process. It is supposed to help authorities evaluate the mental health of the people applying for CCW permits.
I have concerns about the mental health of anyone that wants to force someone to consent to a search in order to have a chance to exercise their 2nd Amendment rights. Would we accept a similar provision for anyone looking for a permit to speak on government property and exercise their 1st Amendment rights? The 2nd Amendment makes it clear that we have the right to bear arms and too many New York politicians have used the excuse of common sense gun control to effectively suppress this right. Some police departments believe that such a bill is also a violation of a person’s 4th Amendment rights.
I am not sure why Kevin Parker and Eric Adams continue to support gun laws written to keep firearms out of the hands of everyone but wealthy white people and powerful politicians. I would say that does not fit with the Democratic Party brand, but I would be wrong. We cannot keep lecturing red states about their treatment of minorities and poor people when New York’s gun laws specifically operate to keep these groups from having the ability to defend themselves.
Do we need to point out the chilling effects on free speech? The tech giants are beginning to have a censorship problem because the censors are letting their political biases color their decision. This very article would be used against me if I were to apply for a weapon because people who support the 2nd Amendment are seen as threats by the media and social media is heavily media driven. What if Texas adopted their own version of this law and put anyone that supported communism or socialism on that list? How far is this system away from China’s “social media score”, which is designed to punish Chinese people for saying things that undermine the control or status of the state?
This bill should be rejected as unconstitutional, as the United States Constitution is the highest law in the land. In addition, Kevin Parker and Eric Adams need to be asked some hard questions about their view of the sanctity of your rights as American citizens. Apparently, we are not all on the same page.
