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Hartheim Castle (courtesy jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

“Any regulatory change wouldn’t require congressional approval.” That’s the word from the spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Service (HHS), an agency created by the framers of the United States Constitution to fulfill Americans’ constitutional right to health care. Not. One wonders what said Founding Fathers would make of a federal fiat that forces state mental-health authorities to “transmit records of anyone who has been declared mentally unfit by a court or other authority to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” You know; so they can be permanently disqualified from firearms purchases. Without due process. Without an appeals system. Hello? Did I wake up in Soviet Russia this morning? The thing is . . .

Like the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (and Really Big Fires) the HHS considers the law of the land a relatively minor impediment to their sacred work of protecting the public from disease, death and yes, terrorism. In this case, the HHS is raising a middle finger to the privacy provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996.

Or is it? If you thought the Act protected your health records from government spying investigation, I don’t think HIPAA means what you think it means. Check out this description of HIPPA’s Privacy Rule from the Centers for Disease Control.

The new regulations provide protection for the privacy of certain individually identifiable health data, referred to as protected health information (PHI). Balancing the protection of individual health information with the need to protect public health, the Privacy Rule expressly permits disclosures without individual authorization to public health authorities authorized by law to collect or receive the information for the purpose of preventing or controlling disease, injury, or disability, including but not limited to public health surveillance, investigation, and intervention.

Public health practice often requires the acquisition, use, and exchange of PHI to perform public health activities (e.g., public health surveillance, program evaluation, terrorism preparedness, outbreak investigations, direct health services, and public health research). Such information enables public health authorities to implement mandated activities (e.g., identifying, monitoring, and responding to death, disease, and disability among populations) and accomplish public health objectives. Public health authorities have a long history of respecting the confidentiality of PHI, and the majority of states as well as the federal government have laws that govern the use of, and serve to protect, identifiable information collected by public health authorities.

See how easy that is? We need your mental health medical records to protect the public. Now give us the damn records so we can stop people who’ve been committed (i.e. treated) for mental illness from purchasing firearms. Or getting a permit to carry a concealed weapon. Or openly carrying a gun. Or possessing a firearm. Or living with someone who possess a firearm.

Once again, we can see that government is the problem, not the solution. Well I can see it. And so can the mental health care industry, which is savvy enough to view the records transfer as counterproductive.

The National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors, the representative for state mental-health agencies, said in a June 7 letter to HHS that the proposal would only serve “to exacerbate the stigma faced by people with mental illnesses and could potentially have a significant chilling effect” on their resolve to seek help.

The American Psychiatric Association, the American Medical Association,and the American Psychological Association expressed similar reservations in separate letters. All are the largest professional organizations in their respective fields.

Federal gun laws prohibit dealers from selling guns to people deemed be “mentally defective.” But few states have contributed the mental-health records needed to make that prohibition meaningful.

“Meaningful.” Where’s the evidence that adding the names of mentally ill people to the FBI’s NICS system will do anything to reduce killing sprees? Lest we forget, Adam Lanza shot his mother in the head, twice, to gain access to her legall purchased firearms.

We’d do well to heed the medical professionals’ [implied] prediction that the new regulation could drive madmen underground, away from treatment, creating more deadly armed attacks. And that’s not the worst of it . . .

At the risk of evoking Godwin’s Law, it’s worth noting that the Nazis “warmed-up” for their mass extermination campaign by sterilizing and then euthanizing the mentally ill. [NB: the U.S. forcibly sterilized mental patients before the Germans as part of America’s fascination with eugenics.] Of course all of these victims were disarmed before they were mutilated and murdered. Now what does that tell you?

It tells me that if ever there was a glide path down a slippery slope to a place my father barely survived, this forthcoming HHS ruling is it. But then, that’s just me. Right?

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72 COMMENTS

      • +1 Lloyd.
        It’s going to take much greater economic pain to encourage the sheeple to pull their heads out of the sand.

        • The minute the people can’t get their welfare check, Starbucks is closed, internet access becomes spotty, and there are regular power outages, only then will the people revolt. Otherwise people will continue to walk around with their heads shoved so far up their backsides, tyranny could come up and spank them silly and they would enjoy it!

    • Murica is to fat,lazy and more interested in meaningless crap and is rapidly
      desending. Stick a fork in her with her fraud 2 party system.

  1. What is the problem with allowing NICS access to mental health records? I am not one who subscribes to arm everyone regardless of mental stability.

    • Someone can be committed for depression, treated and be a completely normal person after that treatment – yet that person now would not be able to own a firearm, and there would be no way for that person to get off that list…How is this a good thing?

      • It’s a tricky topic, but the criteria should be something like you cannot own a firearm while being treated or institutionalized for a mental illness.

        Upon release and successful treatment your rights should be fully restored unless a specific, detailed report is written by an authorized physician requesting otherwise… not a checkbox form with a list of disqualifying conditions, but an actual diagnosis specific to the person in question that proves the physician has hands-on knowledge as to why the person may still be a danger.

        And of course, at any step in this chain there should be an appeals process that isn’t so convoluted as to be unmanageable for the average person or their family.

        • Unfortunately that is not what is written…There is no appeals process. In my case, My wife was committed years ago for depression – because of this, she would not be able to have firearms in the house – which means I would not be able to either.

        • http://www.thekitchn.com/caffeine-withdrawal-is-officially-a-mental-health-disorder-190853

          “the release of the newest version of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) made official what us coffee addicts suspected all along. Caffeine withdrawal can be a mental health disorder.”

          Haven’t had your cup of coffee today? Congragulations, your suffering from mental illness and are now disqualified from owning a firearm

        • Someone could decide caffeine is an addictive drug. New Firearm purchase forms would ask about your use of Caffeine or caffeine-like products.

      • The nature of lists/databases and the majority of people/institutions that use them tends to be one way. The list is created and added to. Very little effort is made to delete, correct or merge. Nothing will ever be removed if there is uncertainty, better to keep useless information than delete something that might be needed later. The decreasing cost of information storage ensures expansion of digital hoarding. The people proposing an infinity of lists are more deranged than those they intend to track.

        Just look at all the crap that resides on your computer, at home, and at work. The government is not magically immune to hoarding, it is certifiably insane. It would be preferable to treat the gov for it’s deficiencies and deny it anything with which it might harm itself or others.

    • Because I don’t trust the ba$tards as far as I can throw them. All this crap sounds good to many in principle. But the implemented version is used against otherwise law-abiding people and peaceful people, who just want to live their lives, ala IRS. Everything .gov touches turns to crap.

    • Worse than that… now, if you stand up for your rights against the US gov, you can be declared as mentally defective, and classified as a danger to society… it is a trick that has been in practice in China and N.Korea for decades… also a favorite tactic of the Soviets back in the day…

      • Suppose. I own a piece of property that someone wants, but I don’t want to sell. How hard would it be to have me declared a danger to [myself, someone, public] and have to sell to stay out of jail, etc. As long as .gov is in charge, there is no oversight.

    • The problem is, none of us are omniscient or omnipotent, and so it is impossible to judge every individual on a case-by-case basis. That is why we have laws, and not secret police who arrest for breaking unwritten rules. You have to accept a little bad for the greater good. In this case, the potential for abuse is huge. For every raving lunatic, there are probably a hundred who have simply been prescribed antidepressants for one reason or another. Furthermore, depriving massive amounts of people of civil liberties they currently enjoy is a great way to discourage them from ever seeking help should they need it, and is a recipe for even worse tragedies.

      • Try one raving lunatic in ten thousand, not one in a hundred. Plus it gets scary when you realize those drugs are over prescribed, especially to younger people.

    • I am not saying people should never owns guns again if they have been rehabilitated from their disease. That is taking it to the extreme other end. But there is no point to a background check if they don’t know you were committed for mental issues. I think there should be a way to get on an off such a list, with clear and easy paperwork. That is the only way NICS can be useful. It shouldn’t be a club you join with no exits.

      • Ah, but who says they are cured? Do you really think that mark will be erased from the record? And what are the thresholds for getting tagged?
        If these questions are not answered I promise we will end up with the worst deal they can imagine.
        The authorities are not prone to self control.

    • As the libtard progessive stopped committing mental defectives thru using legal/court process years ago (it was mean to institutionalize loons) you think they will allow a court hearing to restore gun rights?.

      Over lat 20yrs more than 10% of male elementary kids have been forcefed Ritalin by the psych and gov’t “education” industry manipulating parents. A mental disorder. So these guys are never going to be allowed to own a firearm? For a largely BS “diagnosis”. It’s pretty dang likely no guns for these Bobby.

      What other BSisms is the psych witch doctors defined in their little black book of disorders as mental (or removed those that are now PC approved)? Many. Got the Fed $ for “disabled” or “treatment”? No guns for you.

      – Back from the Sandbox and “issues”. No guns for you.
      – Heck have to be mental to vol for military service (and many know how to use firearms). No guns for you.
      – Minor nonviolent felony? The statists already took you gunrights. That “right”?

      Who is going to determine someone is NOT mental and thus “restore” god given gun rights? The progressives? yeah.

    • Because 100% of the people in the world are mentally ill according to at least one “disorder” that can be found in the DSM.

      A standard trick of totalitarian societies is to define political dissent as a mental illness and lock you up for being crazy. Here’s another easy one. Are you a healthy, red-blooded, heterosexual American male? Ever check out a young female’s posterior? Whoops, you are a sexual predator. Such a deviant can’t have guns. If you don’t believe that, check out what the Feds have just promulgated as the new definition of sexual harassment on campus that requires disciplinary procedures. Staring at female physical features is harassment if the “victim” says so.

      Here is a prediction: every American child that has been diagnosed with ADHD or ADD, about 15% of children, will one day lose their 2A rights. HHS has your medical records, you took, Ritalin or some such, boom no firearms for you. That’s 15% (mostly men) whose rights we’ve taken.

      They can’t do it through legislation, this is how they will do it.

    • i believe people are mentally unstable who have the attitude that no one should own a firearm. let’s hope people with this mentality are never faced with a violent person who is trying to take your life or the life of a loved one.

      • no, let’s hope they are. nothing short of the realization of their own powerlessness is going to flip that mental switch from retard back to normal.

      • What about those of us prescribed ritalin because the school said to, but then were never given it because its bullshit?

        Mom was told to take me to a doc, the doc prescribed said drug, and then Mom proceeded to flush the shit because she said the doctor was full of shit.

        My best friend did the same thing with her daughter’s Adderall. They threw this kid out of school. She was bored during her classes and acting like a goofball was apparently unapproved. They tossed her ass out and told her mother to get her on some ADD drugs or not to bring her back. So she got the prescription.. and never gave it to her kid. This girl is my goddaughter. She can be a pain in the ass and a rebellious little demon sometimes but that’s called “entering teenage years”. She’s most definitely not ADD, and he’s exceedingly intelligent. Boring school schedules and non-engaging schoolwork tends to make intelligent students act out of boredom.

    • I am starting to move to the view of, if you are too dangerous to own a gun, you are too dangerous to be in society. A gun is just a tool. A knife, a car or even a pressure cooker can be used to cause great harm also.

      You might disagree, but that is my view. No one makes sure you aren’t mentally ill before getting behind the wheel.

    • Doctors are radicals who are, by nature, anti-gun. No due process as required by the Constitution. No getting off the list. Word of a doctor? can’t be trusted to be unbiased. Getting out of a depression? No luck….

  2. Let’s not start talking out of both sides of our mouths here. First of all, as RF quotes the order is to “transmit records of anyone who has been declared mentally unfit by a court or other authority.

    If you have been declared mentally unfit by a court, there is a well-established appeals process. I am troubled by the “other authority” and would want to know exactly who qualifies as “other authority.”

    That said, this order is not about transmitting the names of everyone who has sought mental health treatment – only those declared “unfit”. That is a subset of all mental health patients.

    If someone is considered mentally unfit by a competent authority, then I don’t want them to get their hands on a gun. The Constitution was not written to protect the rights of the mentally incompetent where guns are concerned. We do have to be careful though who gets to decide who is incompetent and what criteria is used along with an appeals process, but in the end there are certain folks who should not be allowed to have guns.

    And yes, in a perfect world, we could follow the advice that those who cannot be trusted with guns should not be out in public without a custodian, but I’m not signing up to pay that bill. In the real world we have to deal with imperfect compromises.

    • Up until you are the one who is declared incompetent by your doctor because Uncle Sam is paying his check… Then what are you going to do? I am also not one for allowing those that would/could harm innocent children to have guns, but unless you can guarantee that this system won’t be abused, please leave me out of it!

      • I guess you don’t know any shrinks. Getting them to even admit that they have any patients by name is like pulling teeth. Further, some states, including California, require a physician who has reasonable cause to suspect that his patient is a risk of harm to himself or others to report that patient to the police. Just like the psychiatrist in Aurora did for Holmes. Further, most states have a detailed procedure that must be followed before a person can be committed involuntarily beyond 72 hours–which includes a hearing before a judicial officer.

        • Being committed involuntarily vs. being declared mentally defective by an undefined “authority” are two different things.

          In a strict interpretation, this would be perfectly fine, because it would only insure that Crazy Bill who is utterly convinced that he is a rhinoceros, and often has the urge to kill people for encroaching on his territory, is not permitted, if he escapes from the institution (oh wait, we got rid of most of those as being ‘inhumane…’ but I digress) to go down to his local Cabela’s, buy a firearm, and wreak havoc.

          But we all know that a strict interpretation is the farthest thing from likely. “Mentally defective” is a subjective term, and “authority” could conceivably be some faceless government bureaucrat in an office somewhere, who makes the call that all who have been prescribed any kind of psychiatric medication at any time in their lives are “mentally defective” for the purposes of firearms ownership. (After all, we don’t live in the Wild West and nobody really NEEDS a gun anymore, blah blah blah.)

          Make no mistake, this is a very dangerous encroachment, even if it seems sensible at first glance.

    • Mr. Barrett,

      If a person on the streets is so dangerous that we cannot trust them with a firearm, we cannot trust them with knives, gasoline and matches, automobiles, clubs, nor illegally purchased/stolen firearms, either. In other words they should not be walking the streets at all and they should either be in prison or a mental hospital.

      I don’t care why that person is supposedly dangerous … whether mentally ill or an ex-convict or whatever else. If they are too dangerous, they are too dangerous.

      We have to stop this madness of qualifying which rights which people get amongst us. Either someone is a free citizen or they are not. And if they are not, it is because they are in a prison or mental hospital. Everything else is hopelessly subjective and abused.

      • +100

        as long as the right to own a gun is given to everyone who can vote and walk around freely, groups of people will not lose their rights to have a gun because: “It isn’t a big deal. What do they really ‘need’ a gun for? Can’t they get a cell phone and call the police like the rest of us?”

    • I have a buddy in the middle of a nasty divorce. Wife claimed he was abusive. Judge accepted that claim with no evidence other than wife’s claim. Neither I nor other friends were allowed to testify.

      In a case such as this, a court has ‘found’ him to abusive and required him to be in counseling. Though he is perfectly sane, under this rule his name would probably go to NICS.

    • On that note, what’s the likely hood that there will be
      a dramatic increase of mental incompetence in
      citizens that hold the “wrong” political beliefs?

      I think the IRS has already told us just who will be
      targeted.

      • Political targeting by the irs happens against whichever party isn’t in office perennially. That doesnt excuse or diminish the significance of this latest episode, rather it shows it is a larger problem of political corruption.

  3. Let’s consider that every time you turn a corner there is a battle of wits and words between those of us with common sense and those in the government who are paid to make life heck for the rest of us. When will it stop? When will the government stop invading our rights and privacies and homes?

  4. prior to WW2 Germany was considered by many to be the seat of higher learning and (possibly) culture in Europe
    America is not the nation it was 20 years ago
    The AI will be target #1, those coffee addictions are now a Mental Health Issue

  5. First this POS ruins the US health care system. Now you will see the decline in the mental health system as NO ONE will seek treatment for fear of the Government rounding them up and hauling them away. Soon Psychologists and Psychiatrists will be shutting down their operations and the real dangerous people will furher complicate America. Time to pick a new Land of the Free. This one will resemble Haiti soon. Thank You Barrack POS Insane DumBama

    • Don’t promise a good thing as some kind of a negative.

      I’ll rank the myth of the competence of the shrink industry right up there with that of the DNA ” science” industry and the “global warming” business. Entire industries driven by gov’t $ to “educate” the acolytes, to fund “research”, and fund “solutions”. And a great lifestyle. Big surprise how that works out for all concerned (including the taxpayer). Always get more of what you’re paying for.

  6. I am all for keeping firearms, and matches for that matter, out of the hands of crazy people. But what exactly does “unfit” mean? Does that include any mental, emotional or psychiatric “condition” that causes an involuntary hospitalization? Is that what they are talking about? Somebody – help me out on this please – what is included vs. excluded in this?

    You don’t have to answer, but a link would be apprecaited to more information. Thanks!

  7. N.B.: It’s HIPAA, not “HIPPA.” Everyone, including me, does that.

    Hard to get “hippo” outta yer mind. Even so: It’s H-I-P-A-A.

    • Common mistake, even alot of us healtcare providers make it.

      Health Insurance Portable Accountability Act

      Great reading material if you cant sleep. Id love to smack some nurses across the face with it everytime they say they cant give us the patients chart cuz of HIPAA. Even though they are legaly obligated to provide us with all info during turn over of care.

  8. “Crazy” is most definitely in the eye of the beholder. Years ago, I saw coverage of this story while living just outside NYC. An elderly woman was walking up to people at JFK Airport and “babbling”. She gripped some people by the shirt and babbled away and eventually the cops came, decided she was nuts, and took her to a really horrible place in an involuntary, 72 hour hold. She was there just under the limit when someone at the hospital heard her screaming – she’d been restrained by all four limbs to a bed – and recognized the language. He talked with the doctors, who did about 5 min of research by calling the NYPD who passed along a missing persons report of a middle-aged man who had gone to pick up his mom from JFK. She was arriving from their homeland (I don’t remember where, but it was small place, possibly in the former Yugoslavia, or possibly Montenegro or some such) and he never found her, though the airline confirmed that she had arrived.

    Yes, citizens, she was taken to Bellevue because no one could understand a paniced old woman not speaking English AND because the cops just didn’t want to be bothered. She was released from the hospital into her son’s care. I do not know what happened after that – as the story was of course old news within a day or two.

    I try to remember this story anytime I hear of people being involuntarily committed. It can happen here, and does, because no one simply wants to take the time to understand. Of course, some involuntary commitments are of truly frightening people. My point here is that it is murkier than anyone ought to be comfortable with.

  9. Even if such were to go into effect, it will be about as effective as the DHS/TSA no-fly list. People with names on that list that are the same or similar to real bad guys, or it’s them but no reason given for being on the list, will have endless problems trying to prove they shouldn’t be on the list. Meanwhile, bad guys whose names aren’t on the list, or better yet, are on the list, still make it onto airplanes. Or, in other words, NICS will be about as effective in stopping criminals/mentally ill persons from obtaining firearms as it is now. The only difference being that their “list” will be much longer.

  10. Everything proceeds. Nothing ever comes to a stop on its own until people put a stop to it. Sometimes, it requires people with guns.

  11. I wish we had a competent and trustworthy federal government. A government that was transparent, policed itself, and respected the constitution. Since we have IRS scandals, NSA scandals, F&F, etc., the competency of the federal government and the agents thereof is dubious at best. The solution to the mental health matters at hand is not to further bloat our federal government.

    I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Tort Reform and national competition would have greatly reduced health care costs. Instead, we have a the Affordable Healthcare Act, administered by a government which we cannot afford ($17,000,000,000,000+ in debt and counting) and has not shown respect for the rights of the individual. Soon, that government will have nearly unlimited power to restrict rights and deny firearm ownership based upon “public safety.”

    I guess I’d just rather have a government that answers to the citizen instead of the other way around.

    • A large government can not be trusted. Ever. Hence the Constitution. The only way we can reclaim our Constitutional protections is to cut government down to size. HHS? WTF?

  12. HHS did not give HIPAA the finger. Legislation prohibiting certain actions (invasion of privacy, in this instance) invariably has the true purpose of granting exemptions – usually to government. Your privacy DECLINED when HIPAA passed. Long before that, alert Americans understood that legislation and policy would never protect their personal, sensitive information – only keeping that information from being disclosed in the first place would accomplish that. STAY OUT OF THE SYSTEM. Don’t give your doc your SSN – it’s none of his business. Have him sign a non-disclosure agreement regarding your medical information, essentially superseding the so-called “protection” of HIPAA with contractual provisions. And yes – think TWICE (maybe more) before dealing with any “mental health care” practitioner.

  13. No, Mr. Farago, it’s not just you. It’s me, it’s all the Patriots I know, it’s the men & women I discuss this subject with. We’re all very concerned with the level of snooping and prying into our lives which Big Brother has initiated over the last several years. Oh, we’re not naive enough to think that it hasn’t been going for a lot longer than that, but it’s gone up exponentially lately, for, oh, about the last 4 1/2 years anyway. Mr. Barack “I’m gonna run the most transparent administration ever” Obama has built a truly terrifying database of Americans with opposing beliefs. We should all be terrified, to be honest, even those on the Left. The man knows nothing about loyalty or decency of any kind. To be honest, I’ve never seen someone, in my lifetime anyway, on a bigger power trip than him. He’s totally drunk with the power of the office, a position he won fraudulently in more ways than one.

    King Zero has another thing coming, though. His power trip has shown he knows nothing about America or Americans, we will only be pushed so far. He’s never learned the lessons of Concordia or Lexington, of Bunker Hill and all the rest of the battles of the Revolution. While America might have lost most of the battles in our quest for Independence, our tenacity and our refusal to give in to tyranny enabled our victory over the most powerful nation on earth at the time with the most experienced ground forces and the mightiest navy. Maybe, if you really were an American, Barack (or whatever your name really is), you would have learned this all-important part of our history. But, obviously you’re not, and your actions prove it.
    BTW, did ya get all that, NSA?!?

  14. One other thing, if I may. Someone else said something very interesting here. Some of the “mental disorders” on the approved list from the Psychiatric Assoc. have since been taken off. For instance, homosexuality was considered a mental illness until 1973 when the Marxist influenced took it off the list. I say “Marxist influenced” on account of one of the goals of the Communist Manifest, as outlined in Leon Skousen’s “The Naked Communist” from (I believe) 1953. One of the goals of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) was to introduce homosexuality and all perversions/promiscuity as “natural, normal, and healthy.” This in order to pervert society and help break down the basic family unit, or nuclear family. CPUSA decided that they needed to destroy the family first in order to start the decay in America, turning it toward hardcore Communism.
    Anyway, the point is, mental illnesses on the approved list today might be taken off the list tomorrow. If so, would those diagnosed and stripped of their rights be given back those rights if and when the list was changed?

    Hat Tip to rip_vw32 and neiowa 😉

  15. If this were just for people that have been declared mentally unfit by a court, it would be one thing. California and New York however have shown us they intend to take the guns away from anyone who has ever sought out mental health treatment no matter what it was for. This is their new strategy now that they know they can’t win via the normal means. The will take the guns away from everyone with a mental health record, then declare that wanting to own a gun is a mental disorder to go after the remaining gun owners.

  16. What happens when an incident occurs and the person doesn’t have any mental issues, wasn’t classified as a troublemaker, doesn’t fit any stereotypes?

  17. There s not a prayer in hell for me. I was addicted to Twinkies and am now going through withdrawal.

    I am also addicted to Dairy Queens and Panera Bread coffee and pecan rolls.

    Probably my most damning addiction is to the Constitutionally – guaranteed rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Add to that the rights of the First and Second Amendments. I am also addicted to truth from government and am suffering withdrawal at present.

    There is, of course a distinction between mental competence and psychological normalcy As for who will judge psychological state? Why alienists, of course. Former NYC Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia once famously said: “Statistics are like alienists. They will testify for either side.” (An alienist is a mental health professional. Yeah. I had to look it up too.) So, DSM IV, soon to be DSM V, aside, there seems to be a lot of room for interpretation within the mental health practice. at least according to the views of LaGuardia.

    And this makes 2nd Amendment rights for individuals subject to capricious whims, at best.
    chuckles

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