The mentally ill should not own guns, right?

[km101]

Depends on the definition of "mental illness". The devil is in the details. Who gets to make the determination? A judge, who probably has no training in this field? A medical doctor? A psychiatrist?

You can find an expert witness to testify that someone is sane, and another to testify that he is "mentally ill". Until we have a better understanding of mental illness and how to define it I would not be in favor of limiting their rights on this point alone.

Now if someone is violent? That is a different issue and should be addressed. But no one should lose rights because they sought treatment for mental issues unless they are proved to be a danger to themselves or others!

 

[SleazyRider]

From Dracula (1931 film):

Maid: He's crazy!
Martin: They're all crazy. They're all crazy except you and me. Sometimes I have my doubts about you.
Maid: Yes.

 

[hso]

I'd be very careful about temporary or permanent rights removal based on a prescription alone. There are a lot of anti-anxiety/anti-depression prescriptions written for temporary severe stress situations for people that aren't homicidal or suicidal (my former BIL when my sister was lying in the hospital brain dead after a botched surgery was neither homicidal or suicidal, but he was crushed with the pain at the time and needed some temporary help).

1. Program NICS with information to deny those that have been forcibly committed, assuming they are judged to be violent.

Already supposed to be taking place.

2. Program NICS with information to deny those that have been forcibly committed, regardless of whether they are deemed violent.

Already supposed to be taking place.

3. Confiscate existing weapons from the above households, even if weapons present are owned by others.

I don't think "confiscate" is the appropriate approach and how is that relevant when the individual in question is committed?

4. Deny through NICS anyone diagnosed with a mental disorder, including depression.

Nope, that's just too broad and there are too many shades of depression. If the individual isn't deemed to be a threat to themselves or to others why do this?

5. Deny through NICS anyone prescribed a psychotropic and/or anti-depressant medication for treating the above.

Again, too broad. Prescription is treatment and the level of illness being treated is the issue, not whether you or I are prescribed medication for mild anxiety or depression based on a tough life event.

6. Deny through NICS anyone diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.
6. Deny through NICS anyone prescribed anti-anxiety medication.
7. Confiscate from the households of 3-6.

Same as above, too broad and shallow.

8. Deny through NICS anyone admitting to their therapist feelings of rage at being bullied.
9. Confiscate from the above.

If you don't feel rage as a result of being bullied you're probably not normal. The issue is whether the person is a threat to others and that depends upon a more complex assessment.

10. Glean from pharmaceutical purchases, on-line searches, reading preferences, etc.., those that are at higher risk of being socially isolated and deny purchases through NICS.
11. Confiscate from the above.

Privacy issues, errors in assessment, "socially isolated" too broad/vague.

12. Determine through the recommendations of teachers those students at risk of being bullied and eliminate purchases by any in their household.
13. Confiscate from the above.

Absurd. The "risk" of being bullied probably includes most of us here.

14. Empower / require doctors, therapists, teachers, councilors, pharmacists, etc... To complete a "SARS" report on any they deem a potential threat. Such reports would trigger a NICS decline.
15. Confiscate from the above.

Already required of therapists and getting compliance is the important issue as opposed to broadening it to less qualified persons. MDs and therapists need to step up their responsibility.

 

[AKElroy]

It's already illegal for the mentally ill to own guns. There WILL be stronger laws to ensure it does not happen. As there should be. Instead of burying our heads in the sand and pretending the problem does not exist this is an opportunity for the pro gun side to pass laws that prevent the mentally ill from getting guns, and getting them out of their hands if they become mentally ill after they legally purchased them. And at the same time ensuring that the law is not abused as you claim.

Please show me ANY instance where laws are not abused by those that implement them. As for "our side" crafting this debate and subsequent legislation, please show me where that approach has EVER yielded legislation that actually achieved the stated objective. It does not happen, ever.

Mentally disabled are already being adjudicated, with the state already being free to request the removal of weapons when appropriate for public safety, no new laws required.

Once the legislation you seem to support is passed, bureaucrats will draft the rules and they will not in any way contain the protections you believe "our side" will be able to preserve. The executive will use the law as a crack in the door to execute many if not all of the list I outlined in the OP, under the provision that "it is necessary to enforce the intent of this new legislation". Under the ACA, they will have the data. Since that is the legal essence for the use of executive action, he will likely prevail even if challenged legally.

This will simply be a gun control opportunity, with one radical, dangerous twist: WE ARE THE ONES SUPPORTING IT. ("We" being the "establishment" pro-gun crowd.)

As for legislation being able to "stop" these atrocities, that notion is simply ridiculous. Taking innocent life is already illegal.

 

[Sol]

"Crazy" people, for lack of a better definition, should not have guns and most will agree.

I don't agree with broad definitions and sweeping law changes for a relativley rare occurance.

If your wife is pregnant, and by the off chance has sextuplets, not every hospital in America is going to jump on the bandwagon and re-staff, re-train and re-equip their maternity wards to accomodate a 1 in 100,000,000 birth.

 

[RetiredUSNChief]

It is definitely a slippery slope open to much abuse. Took meds once for anxiety? Told a health nurse at school once you felt like kicking Joe's butt? Lost your temper and yelled at work one day? Whoops, no guns for you...........

It is a very serious subject that needs to be addressed very carefully.

And no knives or other sharp, pointy objects or edged objects with which to poke holes in the bully. This includes screwdrivers, utility knives, razors, sewing needles, glass bottles, glass windows, spindles, etc.

And no strings, rope, cords, belts, cables, lamp cords, baker's twine, fishing line, or other long, flexible, cord-like items which can be used as a garrote.

Of course, we cannot forget baseball bats, tennis rackets, hammers, pikes, truncheons, flashlights, desktop tape dispensors, rocks, tire irons, wrenches, ceramic coffee cups, or other heavy blunt objects.

Don't forget poisonous/toxic items, either, like oven cleaner, ammonia, solvents, paints, bleach, detergents, and your ex-wife's cooking.

Choking hazzards which include small objects like toy soldiers, rocks, pocket change, pins and needles, marbles, bottle caps, chunks of food, batteries, and paperclips.


Life is full of stuff that can be used with lethal intent.

 

[Ed Ames]

Whenever the subject of mental health comes up, I end up thinking about Gustl Mollath.

Anyone here ever heard of him?

He's a German citizen who was placed in the secure unit of a psychiatric hospital because he claimed that staff at a bank in Germany were smuggling money into Switzerland as part of a system of tax evasion.

Many doctors oversaw his "care", and seemingly all agreed he was suffering paranoid delusions and that his claims were absurd.

He was released in 2013, after 7 years in forced psychiatric care....after it came to light that staff at that bank were smuggling money into Switzerland as part of a system of tax evasion.

In a world where speaking truth is insanity, do you really want to strip civil rights of insane people?

 

[MtnCreek]

I'd be very careful about temporary or permanent rights removal based on a prescription alone. There are a lot of anti-anxiety/anti-depression prescriptions written for temporary severe stress situations for people that aren't homicidal or suicidal .................

Some are also prescribed to treat other problems. Some anti-depressants are used to treat migraines.

If left up to the politicians, I could see it going as far as anyone that utters the reason we have the 2A is a dangerous nutcase and shouldn't be allowed to own a firearm.

 

[Sol]

Whenever the subject of mental health comes up, I end up thinking about Gustl Mollath.

Anyone here ever heard of him?

He's a German citizen who was placed in the secure unit of a psychiatric hospital because he claimed that staff at a bank in Germany were smuggling money into Switzerland as part of a system of tax evasion.

Many doctors oversaw his "care", and seemingly all agreed he was suffering paranoid delusions and that his claims were absurd.

He was released in 2013, after 7 years in forced psychiatric care....after it came to light that staff at that bank were smuggling money into Switzerland as part of a system of tax evasion.

In a world where speaking truth is insanity, do you really want to strip civil rights of insane people?

LOL, just like Kyle Reese from the 1984 film "The Terminator".

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Just as a refresher, the actual standard under current law to be a prohibited person due to mental illness is:

"(4) has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution;"

Committed to a mental institution has been read by the courts and the regulatory authorities to mean:
"A formal commitment of a person to a mental institution by a court, board, commission, or other lawful authority. The term includes a commitment to a mental institution involuntarily. The term includes a commitment for mental defectiveness or mental illness. It also includes commitments for other reasons, such as drug use. The term does not include a person in a mental institution for observation or a voluntary admission to a mental institution."

Adjudicated as a mental defective has been defined by the Feds as:
(a) A determination by a court, board, commission, or other lawful authority that a person, as a result of marked subnormal intelligence, or mental illness, incompetency,
condition, or disease:
(1) Is a danger to himself or to others; or
(2) Lacks the mental capacity to contract or manage his own affairs.
(b) The term shall include--
(1) A finding of insanity by a court in a criminal case; and
(2) Those persons found incompetent to stand trial or found not guilty by reason of lack of mental responsibility pursuant to articles 50a and 72b of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, 10 U.S.C. 850a, 876b.

However, there is a split between the Circuit Courts of Appeal on what "adjudicated mentally defective" means in practice. The First Circuit has said that because Congress also included the words "adjudicated mentally defective" they clearly intended to reach a broader group than just those who were committed via adversarial hearing (see U. S. vs. Chamberlain, 159 F.3d 656 (1st Cir. 1998)). They further determined that it didn't matter that the state didn't intend to deprive someone of their firearms rights, it was what Congress said that mattered. This view is shared by one New York District Court, the Attorney General of Delaware and has been cited approvingly by the Sixth Circuit (even though the case in question was a temporary detention with adversarial hearing).

The Fifth and Eighth Circuit on the other hand take this approach: “[t]here is nothing in 18 U.S.C. § 922(h) [now § 922(g) ] which indicates an intent to prohibit the possession of firearms by persons who had been hospitalized for observation and examination, where they were found not to be mentally ill. The statute makes it clear that a commitment is required.” United States v. Hansel, 474 F.2d 1120, 1123 (8th Cir.1973)."

This circuit split is important because if you are involuntarily committed for observation, you can still lose your Second Amendment rights in some state because some circuits view this as "being adjudicated mentally defective", even though in many states the threshhold to be involuntarily committed for observation is MUCH lower than the threshhold for long term commitment (it can be as little as having two doctors sign off).

I think understanding the current law and this circuit split is very important before we start adjusting the process. At a minimum, when you lose a right that is expressly spelled out in the Bill of Rights, you should get to see a judge and you should have the opportunity to have counsel present to represent you. If that threshold isn't met, your name should not be going into NICS.

 

[rs7]

Everything is a weapon. Pen, book, can of beans, automobile, the ground, stapler, clothspin, plastic bag, table, chair, lamp, flashlight, binoculars, guitar, roll of duct tape, plate,frying pan, oh, and guns. Me. These are just some of the things I can see right now.

 

[george burns]

If you watched Dateline the other night, the type of mental illness that seems to cause this behavior is schizophrenia, more than anything else. And there are 7 million diagnosed "I'm not going to try and spell it again", "of them", in this country. This is a real disease of a physical deterioration of part of the brain. When compared to a normal brain, "or even itself in earlier stages", it is easy to see what has happened to that area of the brain, with a catscan.
It is actually deformed and it happens fast. The doctor who is famous, said in a matter of 2 weeks they can go from OK, to complete kayos. They hear voices, "it's part of the disease" and have to block the voices out with meds that can make them sick and fuzzy along with very stoned.
So if no one is monitoring their meds and they go off, they can very quickly let the disease make them do violent things like kill everyone they can find.
How do you protect against something like this? I only see a physical presence of force on force that would make any sense at all.
You can be ok one month and nutty as a fruitcake the following month if you have this. Usually it develops over a long time and they usually have a record of people who suffer from it.
But how do you watch then all? Perhaps the simple way is best, guards stationed in high traffic areas, again it's back to a good man with a gun vs a crazy man with a gun.

 

[AlexanderA]

This "no guns for the mentally ill" ploy is the latest tactic by the gun controllers. Since they haven't been successful in banning categories of guns (since the expiration of the Assault Weapons Ban), they've turned to banning categories of gun owners instead. This follows the successful "no guns for wife beaters" Lautenberg Amendment. If you carry out the list of actions in the OP, by banning people diagnosed with "mental illness" (broadly defined), people who have taken psychiatric medications, and above all people living in the same households as the aforementioned, you have suddenly disqualified over half the population! The aim, therefore, is to make the gun-owning population so small and politically weak that hardly anyone will object when guns are banned entirely. The Second Amendment will be irrelevant when Justice Scalia's "reasonable restrictions" cover just about everybody!

 

[Cesiumsponge]

Demonizing mental illness is just going to drive folks away from getting help because of the stigma attached to it is going to get worse. Now we are going to push the idea that those with mental health issues are dangerous and need their guns taken and other rights stripped? That is absolute garbage. Mental illness is a fuzzy math term.

 

[Spats McGee]

I consider myself a responsible gun owner. The parents of my daughter's friends all know I have guns, and they still let their kids come over, so I guess they must think so, too. I'm not a psychologist or psychiatrist, so I'm not qualified to diagnose mental illness. With all of that said, there are some folks that just shouldn't have guns. There are some folks in this world that are ruined. There's something wrong with them and they'll never be fixed. Can't be fixed.

On the other hand, I worry about the anti-gun politicians deciding that: the desire to own a gun = a symptom of violent tendencies = a sign of mental illness = gun ownership disqualifier.

 

[SleazyRider]

Here you go: http://www.cdc.gov/mentalhealthsurveillance/ . It's the Center for Disease Control's (CDC) mental illness survey, indicating that 25% of Americans have some form of mental illness. The CDC defines mental illness as "all diagnosable mental disorders and is characterized by sustained, abnormal alterations in thinking, mood, or behavior associated with distress and impaired functioning." Pretty broad, I'd say, and dangerously subject to interpretation. Sleep apnea, for example, can lead to alterations in thinking and mood.

 

[AlexanderA]

On the other hand, I worry about the anti-gun politicians deciding that: the desire to own a gun = a symptom of violent tendencies = a sign of mental illness = gun ownership disqualifier.

Exactly. That's where this road is ultimately going. I can see that at some point in the not-so-distant future, the psychiatric profession may label the desire to own a gun, in itself, a sympton of mental illness. If the groundwork has already been laid for precluding the "mentally ill" from gun ownership, the pieces will fall into place, the perfect "Catch-22" will have been created, and simply wanting a gun will mean that you can't have it.

Already, among the hipsters and intelligentsia, "gun people" are seen as barbarians. This is a deep cultural divide and I'm afraid we're on the losing end of it. I grew up in college towns and spent a career working in government centers, and this is the way the bulk of the people I came into contact with feel about it. Those of you who live in Middle America, where guns are accepted, are getting a somewhat slanted view of things. Don't make the mistake of assuming that the attitudes closest to you are the most typical. And remember, also, that the "opinion leaders" -- those hipsters and intellectuals -- have a clout out of proportion to their numbers.

 

[tactikel]

Linking 2nd Amendment rights to mental health, while seeming reasonable, allows so much potential for Governmental abuse in a healthcare system it controls. This is the "Holy Grail" for disarmament zealots.
Remember the abuses by the psychiatric profession in the USSR? Imagine a Psychiatrist who can't practice unless he agrees to Govt guidelines on firearm ownership. Filling a Rx for elavil ( an antidepressant with many off label uses) for sleep getting you permanently barred from firearm ownership.
All medical records are being converted from paper to electronic, this gives the Govt the potential to access your records anytime (and in dark times to alter them).
It is the perfect Catch-22. :banghead:

 

[barnbwt]

If you watched Dateline the other night, the type of mental illness that seems to cause this behavior is schizophrenia, more than anything else.

Schizophrenia is also a fairly broad category of physical brain defects, IIRC (makes sense since it is one of the older diagnoses and therefore based on highly visible symptoms, before there was a very detailed clinical understanding of actual brain mechanics)

TCB

 

[Outlaw Man]

The simple fact is that if someone is "mentally ill" (or whatever term you want to apply) enough, denying them a firearm isn't necessarily going to stop them from killing anyone. There are so many other tools out there to kill someone with, many of them (a knife, for instance) a more likely choice for a particularly warped mind.

Our founders never envisioned "reasonable restrictions" because there are no reasonable restrictions. They will all be used to infringe the rights of the innocent. Had the founders believed reasonable restrictions were okay, they'd have said "...shall not be unreasonably infringed," just as they did with the Fourth Amendment.

There will always be those who "probably shouldn't" have guns, who will end up killing someone. That's a part of life, just as it was in the Eighteenth Century. It is a lack of respect for the Second Amendment and the nearly complete elimination of self-reliance that exacerbates the problem so much more than 250 years ago.

I mean, we're talking about denying rights to millions of people to try to prevent an extraordinarily rare occurrence, that just happens to be embellished by a media with an agenda.

I'll close with one of my favorite quotes. "Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have." Harry Emerson Fosdick

 

[splattergun]

Who do we trust to define who is so mentally ill that they can not be trusted with a civil right? The same APA and AMA that have already spoken out against gun ownership as illness?

 

[Ed Ames]

Already, among the hipsters ..., "gun people" are seen as barbarians.

My observation is that many hipsters see gun ownership as hipster. Not in NYC, I'll grant, but I have gone shooting with a few hipsters with CHLs in Texas.

 

[P5 Guy]

Would a diagnosis of mental illness lead to the infringing on 1st amendment rights?

 

[browningguy]

Whatever, you can take any idea to its most radical possible conclusion. Then you are back to the status quo of do nothing. And since we are governed by a constitution, and there is a method to change it, the inability to have any discussion will eventually lead to us losing.

 

[george burns]

I have said this from the beginning to my friends, give the government information and they will use it against you. Your doctor should know nothing about your personnel life, only as it pertains to your health. Not if you have guns in the house, especially if he s giving you a sleeping pill or pain medication, at some point they will pass legislation that makes the doctor disclose every patient who he ever gave any anti depressant, pain pill, sleeping pill, and any other pill with any side effects. it's a way of collecting all the information they need to take your guns away.
When I see my doctor it's limited to what I am there for and that's it, they write everything down now, if you notice. Even the pharmacy's ask for drivers licenses now when you fill a blood pressure pill. I don't know if all states or counties do, but mine does.
I asked them why they need a drivers license for a blood pressure pill and they told me it's so that have a record that you got it, that's nonsense.
Are a lot of people claiming they picked up their pills and they actually didn't? If my doctor ever asked me if I had a gun, I would just turn it around, and ask him if he had one. Then where he lived, I would bet good money he would not tell you either.