[sakeneko]

Originally Posted by Glenn E. Meyer

Some of the scientific journals have discussed the problems of guns and elderly. Don't have the reference here but it's starting to be noticed.

I think that this is simply part of the whole issue of handling the increasing disabilities that come along as the various types of dementia progress. In the same category with "When do you take away their guns?" are "When do you take the car keys away?" and "When do you move them out of their home and into a care facility or with you?" :/ There's no easy way for a child to do any of these things to a parent that child loves. There's no easy way for *anybody* to do this, even when it's essential because the elderly person is a danger to himself/herself and/or other people.

I have seen some shooters in competition get confused. At the range, I saw a middle aged son have to wrestle a rifle away from Dad who refused to put in down during a cease fire to put up new targets. Dad stated he knew how to shoot, blah, blah. It wasn't pretty.

The last time I competed in a shooting competition, I was fourteen years old, so I haven't seen this. I have, however, had a friend who had multiple physical and emotional ailments that left her a hazard on the road, and have had friends with parents that insisted on continuing to drive even when they were unable to remember where home was or even recognize their children. As I said, these are all the same issue.

If this is what was going on with the 70-year-old man whose story started this whole thread, I hope that the DA has the sense and decency to be the bad guy and insist (before a judge, if necessary) that absolutely essential safety measures be taken. The local DA did this with my father -- insisted he give up his driver's license in return for not being prosecuted for reckless driving. That took a huge burden off of my brothers, who otherwise would have had to report my father to the local DMV. Given my father's general attitude and condition, I suspect that would have ended what little relationship they had with him.

Originally Posted by PT111

A friend of mine had his Father-in-law walk over to him one day and said "I am going to kill that woman in the house over three". He was talking about his wife who lived next door with him but had no idea who she was but she had made him mad for some reason. That was the day they decided that something had to be done. He was absolutely serious about killing his wife and even told how he was going to get his gun and do it.

If he hadn't given up gun ownership some years earlier, my brothers would have had to take them from my father as well, or at least tell the judge that he had guns. Fortunately he wasn't married to anybody at the time.