The Firing Line Forums - View Single Post - Restoration of Gun Rights and Mental Health

Webleymkv · July 3, 2011, 04:05 PM

It's a prickly issue that really has no perfect solution. How do you ensure that no one with a dangerous mental disorder have access to a firearm while at the same time ensuring that no one else's rights are unfairly impinged upon? The answer is that it cannot be done. A striking parallel is that of the criminal justice system: there is no way to ensure that every criminal is punished while every innocent person goes free.

I am inclined to come down on the side of the innocent and menatlly stable. The number of people who represent a danger to society are, statistically, a very small minority. Of the people who have gotten their rights restored, I suspect that the majority of them do not represent a danger to society. Ensuring public safety, unfortunately, require some restriction on personal liberty, the problem is determining the point at which one outweighs the other. I always lean more towards personal liberty (within reason of course) because I believe that people can and should be responsible for their own safety.

Now, I do agree that mentally-ill people need, if they clearly demonstrate that they are a threat to themselves or others, to have certain rights restricted. The problem is that there is, as far as I am aware, no clear black and white test to determine such a state. I am not a psychologist nor have I studied the subject extensively, but from the understanding I do have of it (a couple of undergraduate college courses) it is not an exact science. In my understanding, there are many different schools of thought within the field of psychology and one could easily recieve many different answers to the same question depending on what psychologist was asked and what school of thought he or she subscribed to.

There are, of course, extreme cases which are rather cut and dry such as Loughner who had previously made death threats against several people. More subtle issues like depression or the lack of a firm grasp of reality may be more difficult to ascertain. What is striking to me, however, is that people who do carry out acts of violence such as Loughner and Cho seem to usually send up more and more obvious red flags. Both Loughner and Cho would seem to have been fairly cut and dry cases before their nefarious actions.

July 3, 2011, 04:05 PM	#2
Webleymkv Senior Member Join Date: July 20, 2005 Location: Indiana Posts: 10,446	It's a prickly issue that really has no perfect solution. How do you ensure that no one with a dangerous mental disorder have access to a firearm while at the same time ensuring that no one else's rights are unfairly impinged upon? The answer is that it cannot be done. A striking parallel is that of the criminal justice system: there is no way to ensure that every criminal is punished while every innocent person goes free. I am inclined to come down on the side of the innocent and menatlly stable. The number of people who represent a danger to society are, statistically, a very small minority. Of the people who have gotten their rights restored, I suspect that the majority of them do not represent a danger to society. Ensuring public safety, unfortunately, require some restriction on personal liberty, the problem is determining the point at which one outweighs the other. I always lean more towards personal liberty (within reason of course) because I believe that people can and should be responsible for their own safety. Now, I do agree that mentally-ill people need, if they clearly demonstrate that they are a threat to themselves or others, to have certain rights restricted. The problem is that there is, as far as I am aware, no clear black and white test to determine such a state. I am not a psychologist nor have I studied the subject extensively, but from the understanding I do have of it (a couple of undergraduate college courses) it is not an exact science. In my understanding, there are many different schools of thought within the field of psychology and one could easily recieve many different answers to the same question depending on what psychologist was asked and what school of thought he or she subscribed to. There are, of course, extreme cases which are rather cut and dry such as Loughner who had previously made death threats against several people. More subtle issues like depression or the lack of a firm grasp of reality may be more difficult to ascertain. What is striking to me, however, is that people who do carry out acts of violence such as Loughner and Cho seem to usually send up more and more obvious red flags. Both Loughner and Cho would seem to have been fairly cut and dry cases before their nefarious actions.