The Obama administration and the Mayor of New York are pushing to expand the classes of people who can be denied a gun permit on the basis of mental illness, with mental illness redefined in increasingly broad terms.
Expanded definitions of mental illness would be used to deny a person his Second Amendment rights—all in the name of public safety.
Everyone agrees that there are individuals who are seriously mentally ill and should not have guns. But current law defines that category very narrowly in order to protect core civil liberties—such as the right to self-defense. Now President Obama and big-city Democrat mayors like New York’s de Blasio want to expand the category to include people who are seriously depressed and people over 65 who may be living under financial stress.
What if the government moved further down this slippery slope and expanded the concept of mental illness to inherently threatening behaviors that are derived from radical religious doctrines? For example, what if we applied these new concepts for protecting public safety to the teachings of Sharia as they’re often applied?
Certain passages in the Koran form the basis for radical Islam and jihad against “infidels,” but there are other threatening Islamist behaviors rooted in Sharia Law that also pose dangers to public safety. The women of Cologne, Germany have filed 517 complaints of sexual assault since New Year’s Day. They can tell you all about the Muslim rape gangs. Similar stories of mass assaults on vulnerable women are increasingly common across Europe and North Africa.
Our government and our leaders are constantly surprised by each new Islamist atrocity, each new barbaric attack on innocent children and women, each new rape rampage, and each “lone wolf” act of violence against neighbors and coworkers.
Is this rage coming from political grievances, as claimed by many apologists, or is it rooted in the religious teachings in Islam itself?
- What if we have been looking for an explanation in the wrong place?
- What if “radical Islam” is simply Islam as practiced by the most devout Muslims?
A religion that teaches its most devout followers to kill non-believers (“infidels”) if they will not convert is not a religion of peace. But what is it? If it is inherently violent, why is it entitled to the rights and protections afforded by the First Amendment?
Maybe it’s time to look at radical Islam not simply as a strange religion with a 7th Century worldview but as a mental disorder with murderous implications for all of civilization. The evidence for that conclusion is abundant for anyone without moral blinders, but it is resisted because of political correctness.
- If a man sincerely believes that homosexuals should be killed, not tolerated or afforded civil rights, would you call that a sign of a mental illness?
- If a man believes that his own daughter must be killed to satisfy family honor if she’s raped, would you consider that a sign of mental illness?
- If a man believes that he can become betrothed to a 6-year-old girl and consummate the marriage at age 12, would you think that is a sign of mental illness?
- If a man honestly believes that any woman he can capture in “warfare,” including married women, is automatically his sex slave, would you consider that a sign of mental disorder?
- If a man or woman believes that the proper punishment for apostasy is death — as authorized in the Koran — would you consider that a sign of mental illness?
- If a woman believes that the highest calling for her 9-year-old son is to become a suicide bomber for the greater glory of Allah, would you say she has a mental illness?
Yes, they all have a mental disorder, and its name is Sharia, not jihad, and Sharia is the moral compass and guiding light for more than one billion Muslims.
Apologists for Sharia try to say such practices are not endorsed by mainstream Muslim thought, but just the opposite is true: all of these practices have their origin in the Koran and the Prophet Mohammed’s teachings, the Hadith, not some extremist offshoot of Islam. Anyone who wants more documentation can purchase the Koran and check it out.
For example, see the Koran verses, sura 4:23, 4:24 and sura 33:50. Sura 4:24 establishes the right to treat captured women as sex slaves.
Last month, a Fatwa was published to give a list of “do’s and don’ts” for the proper treatment of sex slaves—sex slaves have rights, you know, such as the right to not be struck in the face. Also, a good Muslim cannot have sexual intercourse with both a captured mother and daughter—he must choose.
In Western societies, we tolerate many bizarre religions as long as they do not, in Thomas Jefferson’s words, pick my pocket or break my leg. Consequently, freedom of religion is guaranteed by the First Amendment. But the freedom that is protected is the freedom of worship, not the freedom to oppress others.
If a religion teaches and justifies murder, mutilation, misogyny, and mayhem against non-believers as fundamental tenets, perhaps that religion is better understood as a criminal conspiracy to deprive others of their rights. If you think that the strange beliefs and behaviors of the most devout Muslims have nothing to do with everyday life in America, think again.
We have at least four million Muslims in the United States and are adding more than a half million each year. And we have over 100,000 Muslim foreign students in our universities, thousands of whom will be offered jobs when they finish their studies.
Agitation for legal recognition of Sharia is growing not only in Europe but in the United States in those states and communities with large concentration of Muslims.
Agitation for legal standing for Sharia uses the traditional argument for toleration, without answering the question, is Sharia tolerant of other religions?
We already have plenty of evidence that Sharia is incompatible with the Constitution and the rule of law. Yet, Sharia continues to advance in many states. Seven states in the South have passed laws to ban Sharia, but they had to not mention Sharia by name in order to avoid lawsuits based on “religious discrimination.”
In Dearborn, Michigan in 2013, a city with a 30 percent Muslim population, the city council passed an ordinance recognizing Sharia, and in Amarillo, Texas, the local Somali community has elected its own mayor. Efforts to enact state laws banning Sharia are vigorously opposed by well-financed Muslim organizations, such as the Council for America-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
In 2006 in Denver, Colorado, a 35-year old graduate student from Saudi Arabia, Homaidan Al-Turki, was convicted of 12 felony counts of sexual assault and related offenses for keeping an Indonesian women prisoner in his basement to serve him as a sex slave. His Muslim wife was convicted on lesser charges as an accomplice in his crimes. The fact that Al-Turki had been on the FBI’s terrorist watch list is an interesting sidebar, but that had nothing to do with his arrest and conviction. He was sentenced to 27 years in prison.
But Al-Turki’s arrest and conviction are not the end of the story, only the beginning. You see, Al-Turki is a hero in his home country. The Saudi government has been trying to get him transferred from his Colorado prison to a Saudi prison. But here’s the really interesting part. He could get his sentence reduced and have better accommodations if he would agree to go to therapy sessions for sexual addiction. Al-Turki refuses therapy because he believes he has done nothing wrong. Here is what he told the judge at sentencing:
Your honor, I am not here to apologize, for I cannot apologize for things I did not do and for crimes I did not commit. The state has criminalized these basic Muslim behaviors. Attacking traditional Muslim behaviors was the focal point of the prosecution.
Holding a woman captive as a sex slave is indeed “traditional Muslim behavior” – according to not only him but his family, the Saudi government and Muslim religious authorities. In Saudi Arabia his behavior would not be a crime.
When Al-Turki is eventually released from prison, he will undoubtedly return to Saudi Arabia. If he remained here, he would be classified as a sex offender and denied many liberties guaranteed to others—like the right to own a gun.
Yet, when you think about it, except for his family’s wealth and influence, Al-Turki’s behavior is no different from that of tens of millions of other Muslims around the world, Muslims practicing the dictates of Sharia. His practice of “traditional Muslim behaviors” was sincere and devout because it is supported in Sharia, the legal system of orthodox Islam.
Individuals who believe they have a right to act as predators on the planet’s five billion “infidels” are victims of a mental illness and should not own guns. The broader, more difficult question is how to apply this common sense maxim in our present Politically Correct world. But it’s not hard to see that the beginning of wisdom on this subject is to halt Muslim immigration.
Tom Tancredo is the founder of the Rocky Mountain Foundation and founder and co-chairman of Team America PAC.
Tom represented Colorado’s sixth congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1999 to 2009, and he is a former presidential candidate.
He is the author of In Mortal Danger: The Battle for America’s Border and Security.
