Well, if they are not readily treatable, then why not, as suggested above, have them committed, since they are an acknowledged danger to people?
It just seems rather interesting the acknowledgment that there are some clearly identifiable people who are a danger to society, but instead of dealing directly with them, the effort is spent trying to limit the rights and actions of the people who are clearly not a danger to others. Strikes me as misguided. It would be more successful and cost effective to deal with the problem directly, while leaving normal people alone.
Yes, I know that committing people is not copacetic. This is why I advocated earlier in this thread that the background check procedures uses to get a CCP is something that the feds should use. Getting a CCP permit requires a background check that covers one’s life, including full mental health certification, and cannot be using mood-altering or or depression drugs, no felonies or charges of aggravated assault or anything of the sort. Then, once received that permit is updated biennially of mental health status, crimes etc. It is not that hard to do, but I bet the federal government will mess it up, just like they do just about everything else.
See post # 1023, eb, about the re-enactment gone bad.
aw,
Will give you the benefit of the doubt that you are being tongue-in-cheek, as you can, in this day and age, only keep a person involuntarily hospitalized if they are ACUTELY dangerous to themselves or others. If they are committed and want to request a discharge, they have to ask for a hearing. But with the current state of our floundering MH services, most patients are discharged if they are not clearly ACUTELY dangerous to themselves or others. If the patient is denying any thoughts of acute self harm or harm to others, is not verbalizing paranoid mentation or other disordered thinking, it is very, very hard to keep them hospitalized. Then there are those who are on partial hospitalization or intensive outpatient status. It is a lower, step-down level of care, but still allows them access to weapons, if they already own them, or purchase them illegally (unless the state is on its toes about background checks, the patient is honest and/or the records are accurate, all of which are big “ifs”. ) So, IMO, restricting access to the “tool” is a wiser approach than risking a habeas corpus issue.
**ETA- sadly, prisons have a huge # of un, under or poorly treated mental health clients.
May I kindly suggest that saying this does not advance your position and the law passed that you mentioned above is a red herring for it does nothing, nothing at all, and was only passed to mollify people who do not understand guns at all, as so much assault weapon talk is. Law might make people feel better, but does zilch to address the issue.
The guns banned shoot no faster than any garden variety handgun, not any faster. The mass shooter at Vtech did more damage with basic handgun that my grandmother can carry. In fact, the gun used in Sandy Hook was no more effective than three basic 9mm handguns with standard magazines.
All these bans do is change the guns purchased, but the rate of fire stays the same; thus, no effect.
You can’t get an adult into treatment (not even a 72 hour psych hold) unless they are considered a danger to themselves or others. And with easy gun access for everyone, it is too late for innocent people by the time that risk level is high enough for mental health action. And even then, the number of beds available for MH treatment are woefully unavailable.
You quoted the part where I said they weren’t treatable, awc, but you skipped the part where I said they weren’t identifiable. Health care professionals can’t tell the people who are going to commit mass shootings from the people with mental disorders who will never be violent. Are you proposing to commit everyone diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders? That’s about 1 in 110 Americans. One in 42 boys has an autism spectrum disorder. Do you propose to institutionalize all of them?
awc, I don’t think your description of what is required to get a CCP is accurate for all or even most states. I delved into what is required to get a concealed carry permit (CCP). It varies very much by state. In some states, the requirements are much looser. Here is a site that appears to be maintained by gun enthusiasts, which details what is required in each state to get a concealed carry permit: http://www.usacarry.com/concealed_carry_permit_information.html
In particular, I can’t find any part that says that taking anti-depressants disqualifies someone for a concealed carry permit in any state. I looked at the requirements for Montana. Permits are denied to felons and people who are under court-ordered drug treatment or supervision. A sheriff can deny the permit to someone “if the sheriff has reasonable cause to believe that the applicant is mentally ill, mentally defective, or mentally disabled or otherwise may be a threat to the peace and good order of the community to the extent that the applicant should not be allowed to carry a concealed weapon.” But there is no check of the applicant’s health history (and how could there be one) and there does not appear to be any prohibition of CCPs to people who take Prozac, Wellbutrin or any of the other common anti-depressants.
I looked at Texas too. The process to get a CCP looks a bit more onerous, but still, I haven’t found anything that says that a Texan can be denied a CCP for taking Wellbutrin.
I think we might be finding some agreement here. At least, I think this from @awcntdb suggests a belief in tightening up requirements for possessing a gun:
As I said in #1084, this appears to be an overstatement of what is actually required to get a CCP. However, awc, am I correct in believing that you think that every gun buyer in the US should be required to undergo a background check? As you know, right now in about 40% of sales, the buyer doesn’t undergo any check. You could legally sell your favorite gun to a raving lunatic.
By the way, over 10% of American adults are taking antidepressants. If that were a disqualifier for owning, carrying or using guns, many people who now have guns would be barred.
CF … I would never advocate automatically committing anyone with a diagnosed mental disorder, but individuals who demonstrate a desire to harm themselves or others is a completely different matter. The vast majority of folks with mental health issues are no danger to themselves or others, and I would advocate for improved mental health treatments for all of them. As we discussed earlier, the funding source(s) for that treatment would just be another quagmire so we’ll avoid that issue.
Nearly all of the perpetrators of these mass shootings gave clues to their level of instability prior to actually committing their heinous acts. Would you be willing to, at least temporarily, involuntarily commit those individuals who demonstrate a desire to harm themselves or others until they can be fully evaluated?
How is this supposed to work? What were the clues that the shooters gave, and who was supposed to be noticing them and involuntarily committing them?
I think you are far too optimistic about the ability of mental health professionals to distinguish the very few mentally disordered individuals who are going to commit mass murder from the huge number of mentally disordered people who are not going to commit mass murder.
Plus, * involuntarily commit those individuals who demonstrate a desire to harm themselves*?? You’ll be committing everyone who is suicidal to mental institutions. The number of people who are suicidal at any given time in the US has got to be in the hundreds of thousands. The number of people who are going to commit a mass murder in the next year is in the tens. This is using an atom bomb to catch a minnow.
The plan to involuntarily commit future mass murders and then treat them fails in two ways: we can’t identify them, and we couldn’t treat them even if we could identify them. I suppose if we could identify all and only future mass murderers, we’d be able to justify locking them up, but we aren’t close to having a prayer of doing that.
You might say, if we had better mental health resources, we could treat people with mental disorders, and then they wouldn’t turn into mass murderers. While I fully support better mental health resources, I don’t see how it will solve the problem of mass murder. Some of those mass murderers (and this includes Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook guy) had parents who were desperate to help their kids and had significant financial resources. But the treatments they managed to find for their children did not prevent them from murdering.
eb, did you see the post 1066 where the ()&(*$^&)(W$&^W#$% mother dropped her gun while fixing her 7 yo daughter’s hair? What the heck was she doing with a loaded gun while doing her daughter’s hair. Hope the hair looks good in the casket.
This. Part of what makes some of these people so unpredictable and dangerous is that they often put on a front around the people they wish to fool, including psychiatrists.
And this is assuming the person has sought out psychiatric care in the first place. What makes you think some of these psychiatrists have some sort of magic button they can push when they are having the wool pulled over their eyes?
Okay, rather than banning guns, let’s talk about requiring permits to buy them.
Awc, you mention the extensive review required to get a CCP permit – a background check that covers one’s life, including full mental health certification, and cannot be using mood-altering or or depression drugs, no felonies or charges of aggravated assault or anything of the sort. Then, once received that permit is updated biennially of mental health status, crimes etc. — and it occurs to me that the purchase, not just the concealing, of a lethal weapon should require such a review.
Permits to purchase and no-loophole background checks would make it harder for the wrong people to purchase guns and not impinge on the rights of law-abiding folks (unless the inconvenience of extra scrutiny is impingement.)
At the very least, it should be necessary to go through a permit review to obtain high-capacity ammunition magazines (say over 17 rounds) and the kind of guns equipped to hold those 100-round drums (I assume those are the military-style assault rifles as opposed to semi-automatic handguns.)
I don’t know if Lanza would have been able to do the same amount of damage with three handguns that he did with an AR-15 assault rifle, but according to police he was able to fire 150 bullets from the AR in less than five minutes.
James Holmes, using a “drum magazine” that held 100 rounds, created carnage that included 12 people dead and 70 wounded in Aurora in fewer than 90 seconds, according to police.
“eb, did you see the post 1066 where the ()&(*$^&)(W$&^W#$% mother dropped her gun while fixing her 7 yo daughter’s hair? What the heck was she doing with a loaded gun while doing her daughter’s hair. Hope the hair looks good in the casket.”
I did indeed. I don’t get how these people think. What possible reason could there have been for her to be holding a gun while doing her little girl’s hair??!!??
There should be no exceptions to getting background check completed prior to a sale, too. If the background check doesn’t come back for two weeks or a month, the buyer should have to wait. None of this 3 days and they get the gun anyway hooey.
Background checks will provide limited information. Some states require reporting only when the person is sent to a state facility (this is from memory but I think thats correct).
There isn’t a way, currently, to know if someone is being treated for a mental illness or mental disorder. There is no repository of that information. And there certainly isn’t a way to know if someone is taking an antidepressant or another psychiatric drug, even if the law required a state to deny a permit to someone taking such a drug (which AFAIK no state requires).
I am completely fine with that, and that is what I assume people meant by enhanced background check. One caveat - if done on the local level, I am cool with it. I just do not think the federal government can be that in-depth locally and would be froth with bureacratic nonsense.
A local level computer system with clear lines of responsibility can accept or reject someone at that level of detail in 2 or 3 days, some in 1 day. In addition, a permit would be respected across state lines. Pretty much like you cannot buy a car and drive away in it without a license, but with a license you can drive in any state.
A system such as the above is why there is literally zero issue with the the almost 13 million CPP holders who people deal with everyday and just do not know. Bottom line, all are certified sane before being allowed to carry the weapon. No reason not to certify the same for the basic buyer of a gun for self-defense at home.
Ironically, the sane-est people carrying a gun today are in open carry states. A person who is open carrying is not hiding the fact he / she has a gun, and is clearly not thinking on shooting anyone, unless warranted. The safest place I have ever felt is in a restaurant out West where 50%+ of the people had their guns visible on their hips or in a shoulder holster. Darn most peaceful restaurant I think I have been in. and no idiot was coming in thinking he could shoot it up either, as it is no advertised gun-free zone for real people “target” practice. And it was a 4-star place to boot, so the food was top-notch.