Make no mistake, I’m among those saying people who have been hospitalized for mental illness should be red flagged for gun ownership on a back ground check. Such checks can go too far, however, as we’ve seen in the New York legislation.
I’ve been wondering a lot lately if the latest gambit to take guns from people who may be on medication for anxiety or depression is actually a wholesale way to disarm a bunch of military vets who may temporarily struggle after coming home from a war zone.
And now the Clash Daily website claims to have spoken with (listen here) a New York VA psychiatrist who says he is paid bonuses to grab Veteran’s guns. The key part starts at 17:23.
Transcript of key part which occurs at minute 17:23 of the video:
The way the VA works, as far as paying their physicians is we get a base salary and we get bonuses. And we get bonuses for doing the most, I mean the most ridiculous things that you can possibly imagine. I mean, I get a nice, huge bonus, I could buy a car, if I sit in on a resident and watch a resident do an examinated. …We get more pay off bonuses than we do on our base pay. …For example, I mean, $3000.00 per veteran if I get five veterans to surrender their guns voluntarily or involuntarily that’s $15,000. Now I see ten patients a day. You know what I mean? This is just me. I work in a large VA Hospital with 28 psychiatrists. …This is everywhere. You gotta understand the mentality of the psychiatrists and the mentality of a lot of the physicians is, ‘These people don’t deserve to have weapons. These people are dangerous. These people are…’ the word now is white supremacists. These people are white supremacists. Separatists, I’m sorry, that’s the word we’ve been told to put in the progress notes. White separatists if you live in a neighborhood with no black people, no hispanic people, no Muslim people, you’re considered a white separatist.
I don’t think the guy is a psychiatrist. “Examinated”? Or is that an edit in the tape? If so why is it edited there? I expect there are shenanigans going on at the VA and I wonder if this guy is right, but I don’t peg him as a psychiatrist.
