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Old April 19, 2013, 08:55 PM   #26
JimDandy
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You're confusing two separate standards -- being adjudicated mentally ill and dangerous is one thing; being adjudicated mentally incompetent is completely separate from that.
I find the same language here And Title 18 Section 40 referenced in the first link is ATF related, though I haven't drilled down the rest of the links.(Because I think, but can't be sure CFR is some sort of shorthand for Executive Branch Department Promulgated Regulation.)

Edit For Clydefrog Just saw your post.

and backtracked to this one:
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These "what if" topics spin all over between members discussing persons who have already adjudicated & those still in the process.

I understand the concern over starting databases & the required criteria, that's a valid point of discussion, my problem is that these TFL topics swerve into "who's to say who is unstable?" Or Obama's gonna take my guns because I have migrane head-aches,
The process for adjudicating is as important and the process for reporting. An "insanity plea" or a finding of not guilty by mental disease or defect, or incompetent to stand trial all feed into NICS, and there's probably an almost automated system for this in many places. If this is done in some form of family court at the request of parents of a minor child, the process may not even exist.

Finally, I should point out to you, that the number of records for those adjudicated mentally deficient far outstrip the number of records for those convicted of a prohibiting offense. Mental Deficiency was the second most populous result.

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Old April 19, 2013, 09:05 PM   #27
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Those of you who have been through these discussions in different threads here know my opinion on this. I think temporary involuntary inpatient treatment, with full restoration of rights available once the treatment has been shown to be effective is the tool that is missing in these scenarios.

That being said, can anyone here prove to me that restrictions on purchasing firearms through the retail system is effective in keeping obsessed people with mental disorders who are in the general population from getting the guns they want?

I have dealt with obsessed patients that were so bad they needed a locked, controlled environment. Obsession, combined with even an average intelligence is a powerful, devious, and effective source of trouble.
The first part of my nursing career was spent in ER's. I gained a lot of experience with addict and psych patient behaviour. The second part I was in the other end of trauma nursing so to speak, spinal cord and brain injury. The brain injuries quite often spent time in locked units as they were healing. Even with the deficits that came with the brain injuries quite often they were more than a match for us because they were obsessed with escape.
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Old April 19, 2013, 09:24 PM   #28
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I proposed to both my Senators that someone needs to put forth a stand-alone Bill that mandates that the states provide to the NICS data base, all adjudications of mental defect and involuntary committments.

This data is to be provided with the same frequency as the reporting of felony convictions, etc.

Further, the Federal government shall provide such funding as necessary to continually fund this program.

Additionally, all previously existing fees which were paid for by the purchaser of a firearm shall be deemed to be the equivalent of a "poll tax" and are hence unconstitutional and declared to be null and void.

No other manner of "mental health" data or information shall be permitted to be used under any circumstances in the determination of the status of a citizen to be able to freely exercise his or her rights.
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Old April 19, 2013, 09:30 PM   #29
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This data is to be provided with the same frequency as the reporting of felony convictions, etc.
As I've already mentioned, there are more mental deficient records than felons.

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I proposed to both my Senators that someone needs to put forth a stand-alone Bill that mandates that the states provide to the NICS data base, all adjudications of mental defect and involuntary committments.
With our dual sovereignty system, the Federal government has VERY limited ability to mandate the State government do anything. They can only offer money, and prevent grants/federal services in states that don't comply in an effort to cajole states into compliance, or shame their citizenry into demanding compliance from their state lawmakers.
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Old April 19, 2013, 09:49 PM   #30
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Forgive me for saying so guys, but none of those type of laws will be effective.

The truly mentally ill will find a way to get destructive devices to kill people with anyway.

The government finds a way to restrict guns to more people, but the people they stop with it aren't the ones who are committing these acts. The people who are that sick do not care about breaking the law to accomplish their purpose. They will lie, cheat, steal, and kill to accomplish their goals. This can't be argued. Keeping them form buying guns at the counter at Cabela's probably won't even slow them down.

Let's say it works and they can't buy guns, it won't, but let's just say. No problem, they'll find something else I promise, and the first one to use some horror that works effectively will be imitated.
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Old April 19, 2013, 10:00 PM   #31
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They'll use the horror even without a restriction from guns. The suspects in Boston had both guns and bombs. Same with the Columbine kids- just their bombs didn't work.

And sure, someone who's really obsessed can get a gun, just mug a LEO for it. That doesn't mean laws that help prevent it aren't worthwhile.
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Old April 19, 2013, 10:19 PM   #32
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That's very much what I'm saying Jimdandy. I don't see these laws affecting the people they are meant to target.

Ask yourself these questions.

1) Of the last ten incidents like this is there even one where these laws would have completely stopped the shooter? Not slowed them down, or made them choose another alternative, conclusively stopped them and prevented the tragedy.

2) How will they conclusively stop the next one?

3) How do they address the fact that we are dealing with people who simply don't care about right and wrong let alone about what laws say?

4)How do they address the fact that you are dealing with people who are obsessed and are almost inhumanly patient when it comes to spending time to get around restrictions?

The NRA solution solution of putting armed guards in the schools satisfies a lot of these questions, but even if that succeeds they will simply redirect them away from the schools. That's a helpful, if not completely effective, tactic in my opinion.
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Old April 19, 2013, 10:26 PM   #33
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  1. Yes, improved reporting probably would have stopped Cho at Virginia Tech.
  2. These events are statistically rare, misleading vividness makes them seem like the targeted gun crime to prevent, but they aren't.
  3. By starting with the people who do care, and working to absolutely minimized the initial flow into the black market.
  4. By providing more opportunities to catch them making an illegal purchase and get them on law enforcement radar
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Old April 20, 2013, 01:08 AM   #34
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Okay my internet went down for a while.

Let me take the replies in order.

1) Stopping Cho/ Virginia Tech. I don't believe that these laws would have stopped Cho. He would have just known not to go to a source that would do an NICS check. These laws will get a great deal of publicity, I can promise you BG's will take note.

2) The mass murder/spree killer/whatever BG isn't what these laws are supposed to stop. Okay, if you don't see the primary goal of these laws to target this specific type of BG who do you think they will stop? That's not a sarcastic question, if there are other uses for these laws, I might very well think they are a good idea. I'm very much open to that argument.

3) Stopping the flow into the Black Market. I really think that there is no effective way to do this. Even people in prison are still able get drugs and other contraband. I just don't think you can stop it short of a police state of some sort. Even then, think about the French Resistance or Warsaw Ghetto uprising in Nazi occupied territories. Besides, then we're just back to firearms aren't the only way to kill people.

4) An opportunity to catch them. I think that they will just get their weapons somewhere where they know the Police aren't looking. Inhuman determination makes them very good at staying under the radar.

Once again my questions and remarks are based on these most severe cases. If you are meaning something different who knows we might even agree.
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Old April 20, 2013, 02:58 AM   #35
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In some of these posts I perceive a disdain for those who have had mental problems.

I notice it to the point it approaches a bigotry based on fear and ignorance.

We gun owner and supporters of the second amendment do not want to be smeared because some people holding guns kill people.Most gun owners do not.Some mentally ill people kill people.Most do not.

I have seen a person be taken by paranoid schizophrenia.It is sad,tragic.It is a horrible,painful disability that deserves compassion.No.not guns.But not the attitude,either.

I do not advocate selling guns to folks like that orange haired guy who shot up the theater.

I also do not advocate arms for those who batter their wives.

Yet some men lose their RTKBA for raising their voice,or restraining someone for trying to drive drunk...we have all heard stories.In the town I live in,if you are a college student who had a couple of beers and you get caught urinating in an alley.you will be charged with a sex crime because you were exposed,and you will have to register as a sex offender.

We have all heard of well intentioned laws designed to prevent child abuse turning into nightmares for decent parents trying to cope with a difficult child.Old school that I am,I believe a teen boy who says the wrong thing to his mother might deserve a slap across the face.Social workers may not agree.

Laws,well intentioned,that give power to beauraucrats WILL be abused.

Beauraucrats often believe in big,restrictive,powerful government.Add an agenda,a party line,and we live with a monster

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Old April 20, 2013, 04:38 AM   #36
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Mental health issues in 2013...

I can only speak for myself here, but I don't have any bias towards those with mental health problems in general.
My problem is with those VIOLENT or hyper-aggressive thugs who use mental health issues as a crutch or an excuse for their crimes or those who feel that even with medication(s) or treatment programs feel it's okay or safe for them to carry weapons or loaded firearms.
The recent tragic murder of ex-SEAL Chris Kyle in Texas(by a combat veteran with documented PTSD) & the recent road rage shooting in central FL where a guy with a CC license & a .45 Colt Defender murdered a car lot employee after a car accident show that there are people who should not have easy access to weapons & ammunition.

CF
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Old April 20, 2013, 06:31 AM   #37
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The continual whine about "patient privacy" needs to be superseded by safety concerns for the general population.
Yes instead of giving up our 2nd amendment we can give up our 4th and 14th.

How about a better idea. The government can open up and fund the mental institutions and programs it used to run back in the day. So that when a person is unstable they have a place to be held and treated until better. Instead of the current system of catch and release because there is no ongoing treatment for the mentally ill once they are released from the hospital. I have personally EPC'd subjects who displayed a danger to themselves or others and were literaly out at the scene 2hrs later causing problems again.
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Old April 20, 2013, 07:30 AM   #38
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The continual whine about "patient privacy" needs to be superseded by safety concerns for the general population.

Sounds like the call of anti-gun person, "safety concerns of the whole" very dangerous ground, it is also very difficult for any health processional to determine if someone mentally ill is dangerous. If you lose your temper at work perhaps we could have cameras installed in your home for the safety of the community. We really do no want to give politicians the power this tool would give them.

Over my long life I've seen freedom slip away we do not want to lose all and yet we see people begging to give more power to government, sad.
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Old April 20, 2013, 09:49 AM   #39
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teeroux, +1! I couldn't agree more! We need to treat appropriately the ones who are the problem instead of trying to write useless gun laws. This is NOT a gun problem! It is a mental health treatment problem. We are sending our sickest and most vulnerable out to fight the dragon that's mental health problems with a paper sword. What do we expect is going to happen?
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Old April 20, 2013, 11:13 AM   #40
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  1. Cho bought his guns from an FFL. He was POSSIBLY and ARGUABLY Adjudicated Mentally Deficient. Increased reporting could have stopped that.
  2. Nothing stops EVERYTHING, so if we can avoid that Mission Impossible Fallacy- the transition of guns from legal, to "crime guns"
  3. All firearms basically start as legal arms. Once stolen, they become "crime guns" and no law will stop that. But the vast majority of crime guns actually get there through transactions, not thefts.
  4. Somwhere they know... So we keep knocking out those somewheres. Next up is another big chunk. The private sale. We did the store sale. We won't get em all, but we'll get enough to be significant.
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Old April 20, 2013, 01:02 PM   #41
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So Jimdandy you support universal background checks? It seems like that from your answers. None of these laws work without them, the person just buys from a non documenting source and all the effort is wasted.
Even with that as a given you just break it up into two crimes, one to steal/illegally buy the guns, one to commit the violence.

The reason I used the example's (French resistance, Warsaw Ghetto) I did was to show that determined people will get the weapons some other way.
With a little creativity 8 or 10 gas cans, gasoline, and chains for a buildings doors I could out do any of these guys in death toll.

We're going to have to treat the person or stop/kill the person. Trying to remove complete access to deadly weapons just isn't practical.
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Old April 20, 2013, 01:45 PM   #42
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Yeah, I do. Not because they're perfect. But because they're good enough to be worth it. We can devolve to the basic reductio ad absurdum argument, that homicide statutes don't prevent murder either, but we're both mature enough to go beyond that and admit that a law that does it's job isn't going to solve everything it's supposed to, so the question is actually does the law do enough, without intruding too much.

I don't personally see a difference in legal standing between an FFL shopkeeper and John Q Public that means they must be treated differently. While we have so far chosen to, I don't believe we have to. Which I hope neatly skirts the issue of whether the check itself is constitutional to address a subtle but distinctly different argument on whether they can apply to second-hand as well as retail sales.

IF the check itself is constitutional, a question I am also open to, then it is legal for both types of sales, to my understanding. I've asked this question before, and I haven't seen anyone proclaim that either the parties involved or the firearm for sale are legally differentiated enough to make the transaction different with any confidence and cites to back up that assertion.
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Old April 20, 2013, 02:08 PM   #43
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Sounds like the call of anti-gun person, "safety concerns of the whole" very dangerous ground, it is also very difficult for any health processional to determine if someone mentally ill is dangerous.
Then let's stay with the current system where they do nothing and refuse to report anybody for anything. It's working great.
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Old April 20, 2013, 02:42 PM   #44
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Let us put this in perspective - overall violent crimes are down since 1980; overall gun crimes are down since 1980; we have had some mentally unsafe people commit some high profile crimes, but media attention notwithstanding, those remain statistical outliers.

So, my opinion is that UBCs and non-adjudicated reporting to NICS are cures that are worse than the disease they would allegedly cure.

Edit: We gun owners often criticize the media for ardently supporting the First Amendment while trying to gut the Second. I find it quite hypocritical to support the Second, while trying to weaken the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth...

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Old April 20, 2013, 03:52 PM   #45
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Jimdandy, if we go down the pathway of universal checks, then these laws do make more sense.
I think I see where we are disagreeing though, you see the argument that these people will just simply step around the restrictions as a much more unlikely thing than I do.
I've had a lot of experience with addicts and the Mentally ill. 20 years in nursing, as well as immediate family members with serious problems. After that much experience I just don't see reasonable restrictions stopping those type of folks.
It takes pretty drastic measures just to slow them down in my experience.
At that point it just doesn't make sense to take what seem to be sensible mild measures.

Now throw the time and effort into our scary broken mental health system you might have some shot at stopping these folks. Overhaul it completely with hard questions asked and answered with hard solutions you might very well have a shot at drastically reducing the problem.

If I ask you if you want to spend weeks in an inpatient facility with monitoring and outpatient treatment mandatory afterwards or I can let you go and you will become a mass murdering suicidal maniac, if you're sane which alternative do you choose? We fail the person doing the shooting first, then the others die over our lack of resolve and the restrictions that come with the current rules.

If we decide that there is too much loss of freedom (those fourth through sixth amendment problems mentioned)to solve this statistically small problem,
then we've made that decision and it is what is so we go on.
In my opinion common sense, low level, gun restrictions do nothing to address the root issues and problems.
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Old April 20, 2013, 05:36 PM   #46
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Close. I ackowledge some will get around. There will always be crime guns. I believe UBCs will further slow the rate legal arms become crime guns, however.
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Old April 20, 2013, 05:53 PM   #47
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And I believe UBCs would just represent another erosion of 2A/RKBA. This would be unacceptable even if they were effective - which I do not believe they would be.

I don't like erosions of ANY core rights in the BoR, and believe that if anything we should be trying to get rid of NICS, rather than expand it.

I am not opposed to expanded mental health care. I am not opposed to adjudicated, due process commitments - but I think we have to be very careful in how we define adjudication.

Some here seem to think that any official method used in any jurisdiction is acceptable. To those people, I would point out that only a few decades ago, electric shock therapy and lobotomies were considered acceptable in some parts of the US.
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Old April 20, 2013, 06:43 PM   #48
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We're so much better at treating mental illness than we used to be that I really think a lot of this is treatable.
My heart goes out to the families of shooters as well as the other victims of their mental illness. I'd sure like to try and see if we could find a balance point that protected more people while still leaving the Bill of Rights intact. I think there is room for movement.
If I'm protecting your right to murder people and then take your own life I don't feel like I'm actually helping you.
That being said, I do not think that there is any way for laws to stop all evil or illness.
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Old April 20, 2013, 06:51 PM   #49
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Jimdandy.

"As I've already mentioned, there are more mental deficient records than felons."

So, if they have been properly adjudicated, what exactly is the problem? That there are too many instances? That is not an excuse not to report; if anything it makes it more important.

"With our dual sovereignty system, the Federal government has VERY limited ability to mandate the State government do anything. They can only offer money, and prevent grants/federal services in states that don't comply in an effort to cajole states into compliance, or shame their citizenry into demanding compliance from their state lawmakers. "

Then exactly how does the apparent complete reporting of felony convictions, DAs and ROs get regularly reported to the NICS database? Just put the mental health adjudications and involuntary committments under that same regulation. Is there a problem with that? If so, why?

Scrubcedar:

I fully understand that the effective outcome of any of these "prohibiting" laws is highly questionable. That is not a reason to ignore having them any more than the fact that we continue to have murderers that we should just recind laws against murder. Yes, it's reductio ad absurdum and intended as such.

We're stuck with the #4473; I don't ever see that going away. That given, I see no reason that the mental health component would be any less effective than the other "disqualifiers" in section 11 and to blow it off as being "non-productive" means that all of section 11 should simply be eliminated for the same reason.

Presently, the lack of provision for putting adjudications and committments on the same footing as the criminal convictions not only makes no sense, it serves to make an already weak system even more worthless. Simply put, if you not going to require the data be provided, what is the point of having 11f on the form?

I am adamantly opposed to using any other information of a medical nature as a disqualifier for a citizen to be able to freely exercise his/her individual, fundamental rights ... not without due process. If you are inclined otherwise I only suggest you substitute the right to vote for the right to own a firearm and ask yourself if you still fee the same way.

As to (Not Really) Universal Background Checks, before I jump on that bandwagon, I want to see the effect of vigorous investigation and serious prosecution of felony violations on the #4473. Willful and intentional falsification of information, straw purchases, attempts of prohibited persons to acquire a fiream, and the like. I also want to see serious consequences as well(read that as maximum sentences to be served consecutively).

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Old April 20, 2013, 06:58 PM   #50
Glenn E. Meyer
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If someone uses an insulting term for a person who is mental ill, I will ban them. I have deleted one such post after my first caution. Another and you will no longer contribute to TFL.

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