New York’s WCBS 880 reported this week that two state lawmakers are collaborating on a new bill that would require gun purchasers to submit to a review of their social media history before being allowed to buy a firearm. The bill is being drafted by Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and State Sen. Kevin Palmer, and it would give authorities the right to search three years’ worth of not just your Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram activity, but your internet search history as well.
“A three-year review of a social media profile would give an easy profile of a person who is not suitable to hold and possess a firearm,” said Adams.
Adams said that their bill was only building on what police departments and federal authorities do in the wake of a mass tragedy.
“If the police department is reviewing a gang assault, a robbery, some type of shooting, they go and do a social media profile investigation,” he said.
Therefore, no reason why they can’t do it pre-emptively, eh?
And you thought Minority Report was science fiction.
“We certainly want to make sure that we’re adding to the protections that we need to make sure that people that we’re putting handguns and rifles and shotguns in their possession, that they in fact are the people that are using them in the right way,” said Sen. Parker.
The two Democrats were reportedly inspired to come up with this legislation after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that left 12 people dead.
“The shooter in Pennsylvania had no criminal flags,” Adams told the New York Daily News. “You would have thought this person was a model citizen until you examined his social media profile. He was a broken citizen. He was a time bomb waiting to explode, and that is why it’s important to do this type of review.”
People who wanted to re-certify their license to carry in New York would also have to submit to the review.
We thought we were past the point where these gun-grabbing liberals could surprise us, but you can never underestimate the enemies of freedom. If we’re at the point where our right to bear arms is contingent on letting a bunch of Democrats peruse our internet histories for “red flags,” then the Second Amendment is already a relic of the past.
We doubt this bill is going anywhere – not even in a left-wing outlier like New York – but the mere fact that they’re out there proposing this kind of thing bodes ominously for the future.
