Some With Histories of Mental Illness Petition to Get Their Gun Rights Back

[ChrisL 2]

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RIIIGHT, we should definitely wait until a mentally unstable person shoots someone before deciding he/she shouldn't have a gun. Gotta have the evidence.

"Mentally unstable" covers a HUGE range of afflictions.

Do you propose that anyone that has ever displayed any sign of any kind of mental instability at any point in their lives be preemptively denied their 2nd amendment rights?

This is a serious question, not a sarcastic comment.

If you do honestly believe this then I guess theres no room for debate, but if not then I'd be curious to hear what you think would be fair to everyone

__

My mighty steed

[lawrocket 3]

So you also use this as an example of needing more laws? Meanwhile nnot quite mentioning he'd just gotten out of PRISON for a violent felony.

Nope. He "may" have been bipolar. That's what you'll seize on?

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[kallend 1,623]

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So you also use this as an example of needing more laws? Meanwhile nnot quite mentioning he'd just gotten out of PRISON for a violent felony.

Nope. He "may" have been bipolar. That's what you'll seize on?

Who said we need more laws? We just need better enforcement of the laws we have already.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[SkyPiggie 0]

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"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Right. It meant everybody . . . except the slaves . . . and indigenous peoples of North America . . . oh . . . and women. Everybody . . . as long as you were a white, male, land owner really . . .

You seem to dislike that there were exceptions to rights granted by the Constitution. Yet at the same time you want to carve out your own exception to rights for the mentally ill, no different than what was done to the slaves and Indians. That's inconsistent and illogical of you, dear... Either you're in favor of rights for all, or not. Which is it?

[quade 3]

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Either you're in favor of rights for all, or not. Which is it?

Not inconsistant at all. Right are limited for a number of people for a number of very good reasons. Felons can't own guns and that's a pretty darn good reason. Color of skin and sex of the individual aren't good reasons.

If a person is not mentally able to tell the difference between reality and fantasy, that's an extremely good reason not to let them have access to guns.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[lost_n_confuzd 0]

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If a person is not mentally able to tell the difference between reality and fantasy, that's an extremely good reason not to let them have access to guns.

No, it is not. Someone in my family was diagnosed as being schizophrenic. He would have audible and visual dillusions; hearing his wife having sex in voice mails, seeing her on T.V. and in magazines, and even thought she was getting kickbacks from Obama (not sure for what, he never would say). Anyways, it got to the point to where he would search the house for cameras and mics, had a room full of clippings and articles that he thought involved her and had a map of all the places she had visited for sex parties.

He went through many computers a year because he thought they were hacked, the magistrates knew him by name because he'd drop by weekly to show them new "evidence" against his, now ex, wife.

When it came to his wife, reailty was blurred, but he was never deemed to be violent, never threatened anyone, and this whole time kept his gun collection with no problems. He still thinks his ex-wife was a nympho that received kickbacks from Obama and believes all of his past dillusions were real, but since he's been medicated he no longer acts on them (clippings, searching for mics, etc...) or has any new dillusions that I'm aware of.

My point is that not everyone with a mental illness who has dillusions is a threat, in fact, that vast majority are not.

So why take away their firearms?

Now, as lawrocket said, if someone has a history of violence that is deemed serious enough or has demonstrated the intent to harm themself or others, then yes, their right to possess guns should be taken away.

Edit: I'm all for reinstating their right after whatever reasons for initially taking them away has been mitigated.

[billvon 2,396]

>Either you're in favor of rights for all, or not. Which is it?

?? I am sure that even you are not in favor of rights for criminals.

[quade 3]

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If a person is not mentally able to tell the difference between reality and fantasy, that's an extremely good reason not to let them have access to guns.

No, it is not. Someone in my family was diagnosed as being schizophrenic. He would have audible and visual dillusions; hearing his wife having sex in voice mails, seeing her on T.V. and in magazines, and even thought she was getting kickbacks from Obama (not sure for what, he never would say). Anyways, it got to the point to where he would search the house for cameras and mics, had a room full of clippings and articles that he thought involved her and had a map of all the places she had visited for sex parties.

He went through many computers a year because he thought they were hacked, the magistrates knew him by name because he'd drop by weekly to show them new "evidence" against his, now ex, wife.

When it came to his wife, reailty was blurred, but he was never deemed to be violent, never threatened anyone, and this whole time kept his gun collection with no problems. He still thinks his ex-wife was a nympho that received kickbacks from Obama and believes all of his past dillusions were real, but since he's been medicated he no longer acts on them (clippings, searching for mics, etc...) or has any new dillusions that I'm aware of.

My point is that not everyone with a mental illness who has dillusions is a threat, in fact, that vast majority of them or not.

So why take away their firearms?

Now, as lawrocket said, if someone has a history of violence that is deemed serious enough or has demonstrated the intent to harm themself or others, then yes, their right to possess guns should be taken away.

Seriously? If the person is that delusional how could you possibly trust that he knows when he picks up a gun and fires it at a "target" that the "target" isn't another human?

You can't.

It's not about the person being violent, but that they don't actually know what they're looking at.

Lawrocket's position that you seem to agree with is, hey, let them pull the trigger first and kill somebody and only then take away the guns. That's ludicrous.

That's like saying a person should be allowed to drive drunk until he's had an accident.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[billvon 2,396]

>My point is that not everyone with a mental illness who has dillusions is a threat, in
>fact, that vast majority are not.

Agreed. Only those who cannot tell right from wrong, or are at risk for violence, should be considered a threat.

[lost_n_confuzd 0]

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>My point is that not everyone with a mental illness who has dillusions is a threat, in
>fact, that vast majority are not.

Agreed. Only those who cannot tell right from wrong, or are at risk for violence, should be considered a threat.

I agree, as long that is determined by a psychiatrist and not just a judge or concerned family members. Of course, family members can assist the psychiatrist and give them a better behind-the-scenes view.

[Andy9o8 0]

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as long that is determined by a psychiatrist and not just a judge or concerned family members.

Despite "legal-whuffo" myths and "my friend's brother" anecdotes to the contrary, that requirement is already in place, and has been for quite some time, in virtually every jurisdiction in the US. Sometimes emergency action (like police intervention or a temporary injunction) may be taken to interrupt or prevent an immediate risk; but ultimately, the final decision is made or reviewable by the courts, based on examinations, diagnoses and professional opinions of psychiatric experts - all of which are subject to cross-examination and rebuttal by counter-experts.

[ChrisL 2]

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Despite "legal-whuffo" myths and "my friend's brother" anecdotes to the contrary, that requirement is already in place, and has been for quite some time, in virtually every jurisdiction in the US. Sometimes emergency action (like police intervention or a temporary injunction) may be taken to interrupt or prevent an immediate risk; but ultimately, the final decision is made or reviewable by the courts, based on examinations, diagnoses and professional opinions of psychiatric experts - all of which are subject to cross-examination and rebuttal by counter-experts.

This is incorrect, as my own experience clearly indicates.
Read my posts from earlier in the thread.

Simply having a medical doctor (emergency room) commit you to an involuntary 72 hour inpatient "observation" will cause your firearm rights to be revoked without ever having been examined by any mental health professional and without any adjudication in a court by a judge. The legal prohibition does not expire when the 72 hours are over regardless of the result of said observation. Its permanent.

It took me years and a lot of money to have restored what should never have been taken away in the first place.

This is how it works in Pennsylvania and many other states.

I didn't hear this from a legal wuffo or my friends brother. Its not a myth. This happened to me because I accidentally put my arm through a window
one night while I was drunk and the ER doc thought it was possible that the injury was self-inflicted. It was not. In the course of fighting this I met many others that had the same experience.

It was not a fluke or a rare, isolated circumstance.

__

My mighty steed

[lawrocket 3]

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Lawrocket's position that you seem to agree with is, hey, let them pull the trigger first and kill somebody and only then take away the guns. That's ludicrous.

You're actually pretty close. This is exactly what we do with the sane. And it's too bad, Paul, that the sane kill and murder FAR more people that the mentally ill.

Your position is that we take guns from mentally ill regardless of whether there is any threat and they can't get them back. My position is that a person has a right unless that person has abused it and that right is taken only after judicial process where it is proved by the government by - at the very least - clear and convincing evidence that the person should lose the right.

Yes, it will create quite the work load for prosecutors. As it should. Then the prosecutors will have to pick the one in 200 mentally ill who are actually a threat.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[quade 3]

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Your position is that we take guns from mentally ill regardless of whether there is any threat and they can't get them back.

No. Actually, I never said that.

I said, "This entire process needs to be cleaned up."

A prime example was in the first few paragraphs of the article I quoted and linked in the very first post in this thread. There really wasn't a process there at all. The guy stood in front of a judge and presented no medical evidence or testimony from a psychiatrist; he didn't even have a note. Essentially the judge asked him, "You ok?" and the guy said, "Yes" and he got his guns back.

That's irresponsible.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[mnealtx 0]

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Your position is that we take guns from mentally ill regardless of whether there is any threat and they can't get them back.

No. Actually, I never said that.

I said, "This entire process needs to be cleaned up."

A prime example was in the first few paragraphs of the article I quoted and linked in the very first post in this thread. There really wasn't a process there at all. The guy stood in front of a judge and presented no medical evidence or testimony from a psychiatrist; he didn't even have a note. Essentially the judge asked him, "You ok?" and the guy said, "Yes" and he got his guns back.

That's irresponsible.

So, it's ok for a judge to involuntarily commit someone sans psychiatric evidence, but irresponsible to restore their rights absent the same evidence? And you don't see a dichotomy in your position?

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[quade 3]

What part of, "entire process" were you unclear about?

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Gravitymaster 0]

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People With Mental Illness More Often Crime Victims

Aaron Levin

Comparing national criminal-justice figures with those for an urban sample of mentally ill persons shows that they are more likely to be victims of violent crime than is the general population.


More than one-fourth of persons with severe mental illness are victims of violent crime in the course of a year, a rate 11 times higher than that of the general population, according to a study by researchers at Northwestern University.

They estimated that nearly 3 million severely mentally ill people are crime victims each year in the United States.

This is the first such study to include a large, random sample of community-living, mentally ill persons and to use the same measures of victimization used by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, said lead author Linda Teplin, Ph.D., Owen L. Coon Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University, in the August Archives of General Psychiatry.

Victimization rates vary with the type of violent crime, said the researchers. People with mental illness were eight times more likely to be robbed, 15 times more likely to be assaulted, and 23 times more likely to be raped than was the general population. Theft of property from persons, rare in the general population at 0.2 percent, happens to 21 percent of mentally ill persons, or 140 times as often. Even theft of minor items from victims can increase their anxiety and worsen psychiatric symptoms, the researchers said.

“The direction of causality is the reverse of common belief: persons who are seriously mentally ill are far more likely to be the victims of violence than its initiators,” said Leon Eisenberg, M.D., professor emeritus of social medicine and health policy at Harvard Medical School, in an accompanying editorial. “The evidence produced by Linda Teplin et al. settles the matter beyond question.”

http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/40/17/16.full

So can we put you down for denying the mentally ill the ability to defend themselves?

[mnealtx 0]

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What part of, "entire process" were you unclear about?

Since your entire contribution to the thread has been based about the *restoral* of rights and not the removal, you'll excuse me if I find your protestation unconvincing.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[quade 3]

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What part of, "entire process" were you unclear about?

Since your entire contribution to the thread has been based about the *restoral* of rights and not the removal, you'll excuse me if I find your protestation unconvincing.

Mike, if I said the Sun was in the sky, you'd say it was the Moon.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[mnealtx 0]

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What part of, "entire process" were you unclear about?

Since your entire contribution to the thread has been based about the *restoral* of rights and not the removal, you'll excuse me if I find your protestation unconvincing.

Mike, if I said the Sun was in the sky, you'd say it was the Moon.

When it's 11:30 at night and I see silvery light and craters, then yes, I'm going to say it's the Moon.

I can understand erring on the side of caution - but there's a flip side to that coin. If the person is such a danger that they cannot have their rights restored, why were they released from care in the first place? The burden of proof should be on the *state* to prove they are a danger, not on the individual to prove they are not.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[ChrisL 2]

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The burden of proof should be on the *state* to prove they are a danger, not on the individual to prove they are not.

+1

I would refine this to say that if the state HAS proved an individual to be potentially dangerous (via thorough psychological examination by qualified mental health experts) and revoked their rights based on that finding, then in any future attempt by the individual to have their rights restored the burden of proof should be on the individual to prove that they are no longer a danger.

In no case should rights be revoked long term without the state (via thorough psychological examination by qualified mental health experts) having to prove in a court of law that the individual presents a real danger to themselves or others.

__

My mighty steed

[dmcoco84 4]

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What part of, "entire process" were you unclear about?

So if you had your picture perfect "process"...

How would things work?

[quade 3]

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What part of, "entire process" were you unclear about?

So if you had your picture perfect "process"...
How would things work?

Unfortunately, it can't be perfect because to a certain extent judging a person's sanity is subjective. Unlike alcohol or drugs, you can't do a simple chemical test and this person is and that person isn't sane "enough."

So let's say there's an altercation of some sort where one party (cops, family, healthcare professionals) thinks the guy is unstable. They go to a court and get a temporary separation between the guy and anything that might be a concern. During this temporary separation, a panel of mental health professionals, 3, run the person through some standardized tests. The guy passes and, while there was a period the guy was under suspicion, no harm, no foul and the guy can sue for false arrest and loss of wages, etc. The guy is found incompetent, actions are taken to more permanently separate him from the ability to do people harm.

Time goes by and somebody thinks he's cured, back to step one on the panel of people doing testing, but they have to be different people than the guy that thinks the subject is cured. In other words, neutral parties to his treatment.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[popsjumper 2]

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....
Right - because we have to wait until they commit a crime. (1)Do we take away a person's right to a gun because he has a misdemeanor drunk in public? (2)Or a DUI? (3)Sure, thayt person has demonstrated a lack of responsibility, but guns have nothing to do with it.
....

(1) Thanks God, we do here.
(2) Thanks God, we do here.

(3) I really would love to know what kind of *shyster* you are. It's not first time, I have my doubts.

Alone that lack of responsibility surely is enough to refuse *someone's* right to own weapons.

I'm pretty sure, all of the above 3 pts are saving many, many lives of MY fellow citizens.

I don't knowe...I'm asking...

Does you country have a Bill of Rights, or some similar instrument, that specifically says something along the lines of citizens having "a right to bear arms...."?

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[popsjumper 2]

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>Do we take away a person's right to a gun because he has a misdemeanor
>drunk in public? Or a DUI?

No, but we might take away his pilot's license for that DUI. And we might take away his car if he has demonstrable mental stability problems.

Well, as irrelevant as your statement is, you are right. We can, and do, just that. I missed reading in the Bill of Rights where either of those things are covered. Got a cite?

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239