The AR-15, America’s most popular, semiautomatic centerfire rifle, is the rifle anti-liberty/gun cracktivists love to hate. It’s also the rifle they love to ban. But the Supreme Court, in its landmark 2008 Heller and 2022 Bruen decisions, made clear the Second Amendment acknowledges, but does not create, an unalienable, individual right to keep and bear arms in common use. There aren’t many arms in more common and widespread use than the AR-15.

Advertisement

A 2023 poll commissioned by The Washington Post found—doubtless to their horror—that 1 in 5 Americans—some 16 million—owned an AR-15. More recent estimates approach 40 million. Common indeed.

Frustrated and infuriated by the inconvenient Constitution, Democrats have banned AR-15s and similar rifles by lying about them, calling them “assault weapons” that fire “high-powered” cartridges. There is no such thing as an “assault weapon.” It’s a Democrat fabricated scare term, and the AR-15 fires an intermediate cartridge, considered too weak to effectively take deer-sized animals.

Advertisement

Graphic: A common AR-15. Author.

Advertisement

Now, an independent candidate for the US Senate, in Nebraska, of all places, by the name of Dan Osborn, has hit on a new scheme. He wants to register all “assault weapons,” and require owners to submit to a psychological examination every five years to keep them.

Still, Osborn said at an Omaha town hall that he had even vetted the idea with a gun owner at an earlier town hall in Columbus, and that the gun owner had no objections to the scheme.

Advertisement

“I said, ‘Do you own an assault-style rifle, an AR-15, an M16, an AK-47 or anything like that?'” Osborn said he asked. “He’s like, ‘Yeah, I got a lot of them.’ 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 said, ‘No.'”

Well. Assuming Osborn told the truth about that ill-informed Nebraskan, there are a few problems. Gun registration is illegal, and forcing Americans to submit to presumably hostile—what would be the point otherwise?—periodic mental health probes is the very definition of “infringement.” Motor vehicles are far more dangerous and are the means by which far more Americans are wounded and killed every year than guns. Licenses must be periodically renewed, but driving isn’t an unalienable, express constitutional right. It’s a state-regulated privilege, and even so, there are no periodic mental health tests. Americans wouldn’t stand for that.  

Advertisement

Not every American owns guns, though there are said to be more guns than Americans—there’s a happy thought--but most Americans need to drive.

The NRA was not amused:

Advertisement

“Nebraska Senate candidate Dan Osborn says he would support a gun registry, red flag laws and a 5-year ‘mental evaluation’ for owners of America’s most popular gun platforms,” the National Rifle Association posted on social media on June 9. “This radical view would grant government control over who can exercise their constitutional rights. Nebraskans deserve a senator like NRA-endorsed Pete Ricketts, who will protect their gun rights and keep government controls away from law-abiding citizens.”

Nor was incumbent Nebraska Senator Pete Ricketts:

“Fake Dan Osborn has spent this entire campaign selling out to coastal liberal billionaires. Now, he wants to force Nebraska gun owners to undergo mandatory government exams just to keep guns they legally own. Dan is too extreme for Nebraska.”

Ultimately, even if 51% of Nebraskans were willing to line up to have their psyches probed by anti-liberty/gun shrinks every five years, the Constitution takes some things off the table. That’s the point. It serves as a limitation on the powers of government. Regardless of which party is in power or their good—or malign—intentions, there are just some things Government can’t do to infringe on the unalienable, God-given rights of Americans.

Circa June 2026, we’re in something of a mess. President Trump is struggling, with some success, to push government back, kicking and screaming, within its constitutional boundaries. Democrats threaten, should they once again take power, to obliterate those boundaries and, for good measure, the Constitution. If they succeed, Osborn’s scheme would be superfluous, as the Second Amendment would be ignored or abolished and there would be no need for periodic examinations to keep guns Americans no longer possess. That's the point of a gun registry, and why they're illegal: they're necessary for universal gun confiscation.

In the meantime, Osborn has gone full mental in Nebraska. Never go full mental, and particularly not in Nebraska.

Become a subscriber and get our weekly Friday newsletter with unique content from our editors. These essays alone are worth the cost of the subscription. 

Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, lifelong athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer, and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.