Osborn Proposes 5-Year Mental Health Evaluations for Gun Owners to 'Re-Register' Assault-Style Weapons

by Matt Johnson

(Photo credit Matt Johnson)

OMAHA — Dan Osborn, an Independent candidate for U.S. Senate in Nebraska, at a town hall in Omaha last week, told attendees that he believed there should be mandatory five-year mental health checks for owners of AR-15s and similar “assault-style” rifles.

One guest asked Osborn if he could offer anything “other than ‘thoughts and prayers’—which makes us all want to throw up” regarding gun violence. Osborn responded with notable candor.

While Osborn stressed the need for “middle ground” and “compromise,” he also emphasized the importance of keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals. He cited the case of 74-year-old Billy Booth of Crete, who opened fire on a family of Guatemalan neighbors before turning the gun on himself. Osborn linked the incident to U.S. Sen. Katie Britt’s response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address.

“She sat there in her kitchen, and she said, the illegal immigrants are basically coming up here to kill us and rape us,” Osborn said. “The day after that, a man in Crete pulled a shotgun on his Guatemalan neighbors and opened fire.”

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.

Gun Groups Oppose Proposal

The Plains Sentinel reached out to Patricia Harrold, president of the Nebraska Firearms Owners Association (NFOA), regarding Osborn’s comments. Harrold said Osborn’s proposal violated the Constitution.

“Dan Osborn’s strategy to violate firearm rights demonstrates a penchant for illegal government overreach. His remarks reflect ignorance of not only Nebraska’s law-abiding firearm owning community, but the Constitution, and the criminal justice system,” Harrold said. “His extreme suggestion to require mental health evaluations for law-abiding gun owners is an affront to individual liberty and common sense. The whole of his comments are a significant concern to our over 26,000 members of the Nebraska Firearm Owners Association.”

The National Rifle Association also has a longtime history of opposing “red flag” laws claiming that government would abuse the laws to takeaway citizens’ right.

The Plains Sentinel reached out to Sen. Pete Ricketts campaign for comment. A spokesperson for the campaign said that Osborn “wants to force Nebraska gun owners to undergo mandatory government mental health evaluations every five years just to keep guns they already legally own. Dan Osborn will toe the line on Democrats’ most extreme positions every time.”

Osborn said during his town hall in Omaha that he supports both the U.S. Constitution and the Second Amendment. “I love shooting guns—I love going out to the range,” he said, adding that he has “no intention of going and taking everybody’s guns.”

However, he argued there should be limits: “It is about common sense and who should have them and who shouldn’t have them. And it’s about trying to figure out the ones that shouldn’t have them and make sure they don’t have them.”

— Matt Johnson is a freelance reporter with The Plains Sentinel.