Dan Osborn is running as an independent for the U.S. Senate in Nebraska, but he has the full support of the state’s Democrat leadership and the backing of a number of left-leaning political action committees. Osborn is sort of the midwest version of Graham Platner, without the Nazi tattoos and history of troubling behavior with girlfriends and his spouse; his website touts his career as a mechanic, his service in the Navy, and his labor union activism… while remaining remarkably free of any real positions on policy.
On the campaign trail, however, Osborn has detailed one policy he wants to implement that isn’t likely to go over well with Nebraska gun owners.
Osborn proposed a preemptive “red flag” law targeting owners of “assault-style rifles,” which would require gun owners to undergo a mental health evaluation every five years to re-register those weapons.
He recounted a conversation with a gun owner at a town hall in Columbus to illustrate the idea:
“I said, ‘Do you own an assault-style rifle, an AR-15, an M16, an AK-47, or anything like that?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah. I got a lot of them,’” Osborn recalled. “I said, ‘Let me ask you, would you have an issue with having to re-register those guns after taking a mental health exam—let’s say, I don’t know, just throwing a random number out there—every five years?’ He sat for a second and he said, ‘No.’”
Osborn suggested law enforcement would likely support the measure.
I always look to law enforcement, too, to ask them, what is your stance on guns? Because they’re ultimately the ones who have to deal with them a heck of a lot more than most of us do,” he said. “Most law enforcement will say, yeah, there needs to be some legislation to help protect us as law enforcement.”
Osborn has said in the past that he supports “reasonable gun safety measures” but is also “fundamentally in favor of the Second Amendment.” In his 2024 race against Senator Deb Fischer, he also stated he would seek advice from law enforcement on gun control policy.
“If law enforcement wants bump stocks banned, then we should ban bump stocks because those are the guys that have to deal with it every single day,’’ Osborn said in a 2024 interview.
This is an unbelievably stupid suggestion by Osborn, but it’s a downright dangerous one as well. Given that the vast majority of criminal offenses and suicides involve handguns, not “assault weapons”, how long would it be before anti-gun politicians demanded that gun owners undergo regular mental health assessments regardless of what firearms they own?
And how would the federal government know who owns these “assault-style” rifles to begin with? Simple: Osborn would require them to be registered with the feds, which is yet another infringement on our Second Amendment rights.
Many of the so-called assault weapons that have been used in active shooting incidents were unlawfully obtained, often stolen from parents or other family members. Does Osborn think that every member of a household should undergo these mental health evaluations, or just the owner of the registered firearm?
We already have a mental healthcare shortage in this country. Imagine how much worse it would be if tens of millions of gun owners (and perhaps their immediate family as well) were forced to sit through a mental health evaluation just to be able to continue lawfully possessing the guns they legally purchased.
This is not “common sense.” It’s ludicrous.
Sen. Pete Ricketts, who’s facing Osborn in the general election, told the Plains-Sentinel, “Osborn will toe the line on Democrats’ most extreme positions every time.”
It’s actually worse than that. Not one Democrat in Congress has proposed anything like what Osborn is calling for. If Osborn is elected he won’t just toe the party line. He’d lead Democrats into territory they’ve dared not tread before now in order violate a fundamental civil right.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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