Mental health and gun ownership - how would it work?

[ZigZagZeke]

Zeke, I'm not denouncing the idea--we do BADLY need an overhaul of the mental-health system and a key part of it needs to be de-stigmatizing mental healthcare and individuals seeking or requiring it; that as part of the effort, we basically need to give the good guys something to reassure them that they won't be looked down on or lose anything, and if anything will be MORE respected for recognizing they had a problem and getting the help they need to address it.

I speak from personal experience on this, living with Asperger's; when I first started serious training I had serious worries about how it would affect my eligibility for a carry permit, and in reply one of the cops who trained me gave what I consider some of the highest praise I've ever received, telling me that after completing standard police training he would be quite comfortable swearing me in as a member of his department. (Though I know there ARE people who are like "Autistic? With a gun? *empties bladder and bowels*")

I'm not talking about a diagnosis of this or that being a reason to deny gun ownership. The system I worked in was based on overt behavior. There's a big difference between being socially awkward and chasing your wife down the street with a meat cleaver. And I wouldn't advocate that the burden of proof be on the purchaser with some kind of affirmative testing. That would be too much of an opportunity for abuse. I'd say, sane until proven otherwise. And even if you'd been denied in the past, I'd want a mechanism for reinstatement of rights if enough proof of successful treatment was presented.

 

[Diamondback]

Sounds like we're on the same page then, amigo. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[ZigZagZeke]

Sounds like we're on the same page then, amigo. Thanks for clarifying.

No problem! Thank you.

 

[clearconscience]

Well the govt would probably see everyone of us conspiracy gun nut look over our shoulder types as mentally unstable.
Then they deem us unfit to own firearms. Not to mention the members of our military that got help after returning from hell.

There's room for improvement, but there's a fine line and the people making the rules all want the same thing guns out of the hands of people who won't sit back and be slaves or minions.
So you won't win.

 

[andreys21]

I'm really not sure how to approach the issue of mental illness and gun ownership. It's a Lise lose situation in my eyes. It will cost a lot of money and there are also constitutional issues as well. You can't say that these don't have the same constitutional rights and at the same time, there is no law saying people have to get treatment.

 

[ZigZagZeke]

You can't say that these don't have the same constitutional rights and at the same time, there is no law saying people have to get treatment.

You CAN say that some people don't have these rights. When they end up in prison for murder they lose those rights. When people are incapable of caring for themselves and are a danger to those around them those rights can and should be taken away, at least temporarily. And the ultimate cruelty is to expect those who can't care for themselves to volunteer for treatment. The very reason they need treatment is that they are out of touch with reality, including the reality that they need treatment.

 

[ATCclears]

Not gonna happen.

This Is How a Secret Gun Provision Made its Way Into Obamacare Legislation | TheBlaze.com

I find the hypocrisy amusing since the Democrats had control of the House, Senate, and Presidency in 2010 when passing the monstrous language for Obamacare, and a Democrat inserts this language into the Bill.

Peter

 

[ZigZagZeke]

This is the kind of "crazy" I'm talking about:

A German student "mooned" a group of Hell's Angels and hurled a puppy at them before escaping on a stolen bulldozer, police have said.

The man drove up to a Hell's Angels clubhouse near Munich, wearing only a pair of shorts and carrying a puppy. He dropped his shorts and threw the dog, escaping on a bulldozer from a nearby building site.

He was arrested later at home by police. The 26-year-old is said to have stopped taking depression medication. After making his getaway on the bulldozer, he had driven so slowly that a 5km tailback built up behind him on the motorway. After driving about 1km, he had abandoned the bulldozer in the middle of the motorway, near Allershausen. He continued his journey by hitchhiking.

"What motivated him to throw a puppy at the Hell's Angels is currently unclear," a police spokesman said.

The puppy is now being cared for in an animal shelter.

 

[PiratePast40]

Not gonna happen.

This Is How a Secret Gun Provision Made its Way Into Obamacare Legislation | TheBlaze.com

I find the hypocrisy amusing since the Democrats had control of the House, Senate, and Presidency in 2010 when passing the monstrous language for Obamacare, and a Democrat inserts this language into the Bill.

Peter

That doesn't prohibit mental health information from going to the FBI for use with the NICS. Only says that doctors can't report patient gun ownership or the existance of firearms in the patients home.

In reality, I see this coming down similar to other conditions that doctors report to the state for purposes of operating a motor vehicle. An example is the occurance of seizures. If you have a disorder that results in seizures, doctors report that to the state and the patients driving priveledges are suspended. They are only reinstated after six months of being seizure free as reported by a physician.

 

[bolus]

That doesn't prohibit mental health information from going to the FBI for use with the NICS. Only says that doctors can't report patient gun ownership or the existance of firearms in the patients home.

In reality, I see this coming down similar to other conditions that doctors report to the state for purposes of operating a motor vehicle. An example is the occurance of seizures. If you have a disorder that results in seizures, doctors report that to the state and the patients driving priveledges are suspended. They are only reinstated after six months of being seizure free as reported by a physician.

I mentioned in another thread on this topic, as a physician I wont take the liability of declaring this one way or another. If I declare someone fine to own a gun and they kill someone Im going to get blamed. If I say someone should not have a gun and they get attacked and cant defend themselves, I get blamed. I already have to walk a minefield of lawsuits, not going to even touch this one. My work's legal counsel does not want me even to do home visits because of liability, they would freak out with this sort of thing.

If you get involuntarily committed then it is a legal issue because a judge is involved though from what I understand does not get into NICS very often.

 

[billstaf]

There is no question we need to revamp the mental health system in this country. However, that is another argument. What we need to be concerned with is the here and now and how this issue relates to firearms freedoms for all of us. The only thing all of these mass shootings have in common is the nutball pulling the trigger. The locations are all different, the guns are different, the victims are different. The only commonality is the maniac shooter. We should start there, and leave legitimate gun owners and their guns alone as they have nothing at all to do with any of these shootings.

I would suggest that any serious mental health information officially gathered on an individual by his medical team or law enforcement be made available to the NICS database. This would include domestic violence, violent outbursts, mood altering medications, behavior unusual enough to warrant attention, etc. This should be a requirement of medical facilities at the state level (similar to reporting requirements for suspected child or spousal abuse). There is a medical privacy issue here, and any relevant information should go no farther than the NICS database, but given a comprehensive enough set of guidelines, the background check could then deny the potential gun purchase right in the gun shop. Also, any attempted gun purchase would then trigger a notification to local law enforcement that a known nutjob is looking to pick up a weapon. Keeping the nuts away from guns should be priority number one.

Doing something like this won't stop all mad shooters, but it could help by keeping the crazies from being able to legally purchase a firearm. (like the Virginia Tech shooter did). At the same time, those of us who sanely enjoy our particular types of firearms won't be getting our Second Amendment rights trampled on by all the Chicken Littles out there for no apparent reason.

 

[mud]

Also, if somebody IS committed and somehow gets the issue resolved so that they are not a danger to self or others, how do you give an avenue to have their rights restored? A lot of mental-health issues get stigmatized in our circles because so many think it means an immediate "you're crazy, so no guns for you again ever"... Where's the safeguard for the individual if it's something they can come back from?

you wouldnt it would be a life long ban just like felonies or dv charges.one problem is whos to say they dont pull you over see you cc say your acting nuts bring you down to mental health.by then your being falsly called crazy and brought in on a 72 hour mental hold(which they can do by suspecting you are a threat to your self or any one else)you will probably be pissed off yelling cussing pace back and forth all on video at mental health your clearly unstable and hereby banned from firearms

 

[PiratePast40]

Well, looks like it'll go down "the New York way". New York Senate Passes Gun-Control Laws - WSJ.com
Mental health care providers will be required to report potentially dangerous patients to authorities. Since Cumo is in the running for president in 2016, I'm sure the rest of the democratic party will be looking to their next Fuhrer for an example to follow.

 

[Steve06]

Where is the line where you lose your 2A rights? Seeing a Social Worker, psychologist, Psychiatrist for any reason? By being prescribed certain drugs? What about addicts? Will cops now have the skills for mental health diagnosis? How about Judges, Parole Officers or school officials? How about a Road Rage idiot (we have all seen them). Talk about a tool for population control! ! !

 

[Robear]

Just like every state, Oregon has an existing law about mental health and firearms ownership. Simply Google ORS 426.130 to learn about it. I've worked as a social worker on an inpatient psychiatric unit for many years. A person has to be REALLY SCARY CRAZY to be committed and potentially have their firearms rights removed. The commitment process involves a full courtroom procedure with a judge, lawyers and the like. Commitment is not done casually. Someone who gets a little depressed and takes Prozac could never get committed. We're talking about people who are grossly psychotic, dangerous and unpredictable. They may hear voices telling them that the next person walking down the street is planning on killing them if they don't kill them first. Frankly if you were familiar with how out of touch with reality some people can become, you wouldn't want them to have access to guns until they get better.

 

[ZigZagZeke]

Just like every state, Oregon has an existing law about mental health and firearms ownership. Simply Google ORS 426.130 to learn about it. I've worked as a social worker on an inpatient psychiatric unit for many years. A person has to be REALLY SCARY CRAZY to be committed and potentially have their firearms rights removed. The commitment process involves a full courtroom procedure with a judge, lawyers and the like. Commitment is not done casually. Someone who gets a little depressed and takes Prozac could never get committed. We're talking about people who are grossly psychotic, dangerous and unpredictable. They may hear voices telling them that the next person walking down the street is planning on killing them if they don't kill them first. Frankly if you were familiar with how out of touch with reality some people can become, you wouldn't want them to have access to guns until they get better.

This is exactly what I've been trying to say about mental health. There was a time when there was a place to put people like this. I was a psych tech in 1970. We had 72 hour holds for observation all the time and the bad ones stayed for a few weeks, months, or years. That's what we need again. Most of the shooters, if brought in on a 72 hour hold, wouldn't have gotten back out again for quite a while.

We're not talking about people being disqualified from owning firearms because they went for counseling or because they were prescribed Prozac.

 

[Dunerunner]

What hasn't been brought into the discussion is how something like this would affect whether a person sees his/her doctor or divulges issues to their doctor, much less whether they would seek psychiatric care or therapy. I see folks avoiding their doctor's office altogether rather than jeopardizing their right to possess a firearm. JMO

 

[HansC]

Any Oregonians here, anybody remember Dammasch State Hospital? Patients got neglected and tortured there. Patients got killed by staff there. Some of the abuses were so horrific as to seem unbelievable, but the place was a nightmare, a true hell on earth. In the end, apart from staff that ended up in jail for rapes and murders that happened outside the hospital, nobody responsible really got in any trouble other than having to go out and find new jobs. I'm sure there are compelling reasons to tie a person to a table and leave her there for days, or administer electroshock therapy to people with untreated broken bones, but it us worth looking into what was documented that went on there. It got shut down in the mid 90's, after 5 patients died unnecessarily over the space of months.

Nobody, of course, is going to believe the crazy people's stories, but keep in mind that the state destroyed Dammasch State Hospital's records and the governor issued a written apology to former patients.

Crazy people are pretty annoying, and those responsible for caring for them have a history of abusing them that goes back a long, long way. I'm sure an eloquent argument can be made about gun ownership as a sign of paranoia and unreasonable fears of persecution, fear of conspiracy, and enough other stuff to slap a crazy label on someone. Once somebody deems that you're crazy, good luck trying to talk your way out of that one, when anything you say will be dismissed as inconsequential.

Disarmed populaces get treated badly by those with full rights. Visit Israel, and try to figure out whether or not it would be fun to be a Palestinian.

The mental health system in this country is nuts, because at the end of the day, it is a business model. Big Pharma makes money off folks that have to take drugs the rest of their lives, everybody wants to get paid, really well paid, and they want tax money or insurance money to do what they do. I think an excellent case can be made that any human being put on a cocktail of psychoactive drugs for years gets ruined. It might be fun to think that crazy people aren't cash crops. Visit Falls City, where foster parents coach children under their care how to fail on tests and feign diagnosable disorders so that kid could bring in bigger checks for the parents each month. I knew a lady who taught school out there who caught hell from foster parents angry over their children's improvement in school, fearful the kid would lose mental disability status.

I know I'm ranting all over the map here, so I will try to wrap things up. Mental health bureaucracies provide vast incomes for Big Pharma. Next to no benefit or rehabilitation exists as an outcome for a committed patient. State systems commonly abuse patients so badly that it is difficult even to read. Importantly, the judicial process doesn't magically improve for somebody accused of being crazy. Whichever side has more money wins. If it is an individual versus the state, don't expect better odds than you have at traffic court. Being calm, articulate, and showing up with evidence doesn't seem to help there.

While crazy people do crazy things, this whole gun grab thing is just using them as a convenient excuse. Proportionally, do they commit more violent crime than sane people? I don't know the answer, but career criminals aren't crazy. My house was one of seventy burgled in my neighborhood recently, and the police caught them. They weren't crazy. Glad I wasn't home, but I'd like my odds getting out of a situation like that peacefully with a crazy guy in the house over a pair of calculating thieves facing real jail time.

I don't think mental health care is going to improve patient outcome over this whole gun thing. A great deal of control will be exerted over the entire populace, but nobody will be any safer. No amount of scrutiny will stop people without any criminal record from committing murder. There are seven billion people on the planet, and human beings are violent at times.

Remember Rwanda? They didn't outlaw machetes there, even though hundreds of thousands of people were killed with them in a couple of weeks, by tens of thousands of people that were not crazy and had never killed before.

Yes, people will try to take away gun rights. Using crazy people as scapegoats is sensible, because it allows government better access to the records of all its citizens all the time. Think for a moment. Most of the violence that goes on inside a state hospital is carried out by orderlies, just doing their routine duties. Ummm, sure, it is all necessary violence, which is why they get to use professional restraints, armor, teams, training, and legal authority to carry it out. No repercussions, ever, unlike the old guy that refuses to swallow mind altering pills.

There really is no clean answer to mental health. Crazy people exist, and we have to live with them, or treat them, or lock them up, or kill them. They are hard to deal with. You really can't pay people to care, but when you do, you get something like the system we have now, with very poor patient outcomes. Expanding the authority of people who act knowing they understand what's best for you, who feel any thoughts you might have do not have merit, is a bad idea.

Most of the people murdered in this country today will not have been killed by crazy people. On the very rare day when this isn't true, people who plan on taking away your rights jump on it as an opportunity for restrictive legislation.

Ben Wheeler, one of the youngest children shot to death in the Conn. shooting, was the nephew of an ex-girlfriend of mine. Ben's mom, who has one other kid, is so devastated that she doesn't know if she can go on. I've spoken with my ex-girlfriend a few times since this thing has happened. I don't bring up guns. It is important to provide whatever support you can to people affected by such a tragedy.

There are things we can do to limit mass shootings. Be kind to people you don't know, to folks hard on their luck, to those that annoy you. Lock your guns up REALLY WELL, I am glad I did. Try to engage with the community you live in. Laws might help, but personal action usually is more effective in solving problems.

Rich, intelligent kids sometimes kill people. Seems to me a common aspect of mass shoooters is loneliness. Maybe there is something we can do about that.

 

[Asp]

One of the things that confuses me is when people say, "mentally ill" what does this actually mean?
Well, when working with Epic Hyperspace - electronic medical record keeping software - I decided to test the ICD-9 codes regarding mental health (List of ICD-9 codes 290?319: mental disorders - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

I found other illness that are not on that list, and the most ridiculous billable mental illnesses, or as Epic refers to as "problems", is Nihilism.


And while not a mental illness, ICD-9 E928.0



SO, when we think about mental illnesses, can we please be a little more specific? I mean, why should nihilists have their firearms taken? Why should adult stutterers? Those with ADD? What about high functioning autism? Dendrophilia?

So again, what IS a mental illness?

How do you define it medically?
How do you code that as something I can bill, or at least acknowledge it's billable (of course there are always "other" categories), but then also, how do you present a "mental illness" to a judge?

 

[ZigZagZeke]

Any Oregonians here, anybody remember Dammasch State Hospital? Patients got neglected and tortured there. Patients got killed by staff there. Some of the abuses were so horrific as to seem unbelievable, but the place was a nightmare, a true hell on earth. In the end, apart from staff that ended up in jail for rapes and murders that happened outside the hospital, nobody responsible really got in any trouble other than having to go out and find new jobs. I'm sure there are compelling reasons to tie a person to a table and leave her there for days, or administer electroshock therapy to people with untreated broken bones, but it us worth looking into what was documented that went on there. It got shut down in the mid 90's, after 5 patients died unnecessarily over the space of months.

Nobody, of course, is going to believe the crazy people's stories, but keep in mind that the state destroyed Dammasch State Hospital's records and the governor issued a written apology to former patients.

Crazy people are pretty annoying, and those responsible for caring for them have a history of abusing them that goes back a long, long way. I'm sure an eloquent argument can be made about gun ownership as a sign of paranoia and unreasonable fears of persecution, fear of conspiracy, and enough other stuff to slap a crazy label on someone. Once somebody deems that you're crazy, good luck trying to talk your way out of that one, when anything you say will be dismissed as inconsequential.

Disarmed populaces get treated badly by those with full rights. Visit Israel, and try to figure out whether or not it would be fun to be a Palestinian.

The mental health system in this country is nuts, because at the end of the day, it is a business model. Big Pharma makes money off folks that have to take drugs the rest of their lives, everybody wants to get paid, really well paid, and they want tax money or insurance money to do what they do. I think an excellent case can be made that any human being put on a cocktail of psychoactive drugs for years gets ruined. It might be fun to think that crazy people aren't cash crops. Visit Falls City, where foster parents coach children under their care how to fail on tests and feign diagnosable disorders so that kid could bring in bigger checks for the parents each month. I knew a lady who taught school out there who caught hell from foster parents angry over their children's improvement in school, fearful the kid would lose mental disability status.

I know I'm ranting all over the map here, so I will try to wrap things up. Mental health bureaucracies provide vast incomes for Big Pharma. Next to no benefit or rehabilitation exists as an outcome for a committed patient. State systems commonly abuse patients so badly that it is difficult even to read. Importantly, the judicial process doesn't magically improve for somebody accused of being crazy. Whichever side has more money wins. If it is an individual versus the state, don't expect better odds than you have at traffic court. Being calm, articulate, and showing up with evidence doesn't seem to help there.

While crazy people do crazy things, this whole gun grab thing is just using them as a convenient excuse. Proportionally, do they commit more violent crime than sane people? I don't know the answer, but career criminals aren't crazy. My house was one of seventy burgled in my neighborhood recently, and the police caught them. They weren't crazy. Glad I wasn't home, but I'd like my odds getting out of a situation like that peacefully with a crazy guy in the house over a pair of calculating thieves facing real jail time.

I don't think mental health care is going to improve patient outcome over this whole gun thing. A great deal of control will be exerted over the entire populace, but nobody will be any safer. No amount of scrutiny will stop people without any criminal record from committing murder. There are seven billion people on the planet, and human beings are violent at times.

Remember Rwanda? They didn't outlaw machetes there, even though hundreds of thousands of people were killed with them in a couple of weeks, by tens of thousands of people that were not crazy and had never killed before.

Yes, people will try to take away gun rights. Using crazy people as scapegoats is sensible, because it allows government better access to the records of all its citizens all the time. Think for a moment. Most of the violence that goes on inside a state hospital is carried out by orderlies, just doing their routine duties. Ummm, sure, it is all necessary violence, which is why they get to use professional restraints, armor, teams, training, and legal authority to carry it out. No repercussions, ever, unlike the old guy that refuses to swallow mind altering pills.

There really is no clean answer to mental health. Crazy people exist, and we have to live with them, or treat them, or lock them up, or kill them. They are hard to deal with. You really can't pay people to care, but when you do, you get something like the system we have now, with very poor patient outcomes. Expanding the authority of people who act knowing they understand what's best for you, who feel any thoughts you might have do not have merit, is a bad idea.

Most of the people murdered in this country today will not have been killed by crazy people. On the very rare day when this isn't true, people who plan on taking away your rights jump on it as an opportunity for restrictive legislation.

Ben Wheeler, one of the youngest children shot to death in the Conn. shooting, was the nephew of an ex-girlfriend of mine. Ben's mom, who has one other kid, is so devastated that she doesn't know if she can go on. I've spoken with my ex-girlfriend a few times since this thing has happened. I don't bring up guns. It is important to provide whatever support you can to people affected by such a tragedy.

There are things we can do to limit mass shootings. Be kind to people you don't know, to folks hard on their luck, to those that annoy you. Lock your guns up REALLY WELL, I am glad I did. Try to engage with the community you live in. Laws might help, but personal action usually is more effective in solving problems.

Rich, intelligent kids sometimes kill people. Seems to me a common aspect of mass shoooters is loneliness. Maybe there is something we can do about that.

Gee, thanks for discounting and obfuscating the one real issue in this whole "mass shooter" mess. Your diatribe reads like something out of PETA or HSUS. The Liberal "human rights" advocates of the 60's used all of the same tactics as the animal rights groups. Take the wildest abuses you can find and attribute them across the board as "normal" operating procedure. Were you ever a patient? Did you ever work in the field? You make a lot of statements about how the system was abusive and did nothing to improve anyone's situation, but you provide no documentation. My experience when I worked there was that there were no orderlies, no armor, and no violence toward patients. Violent patients were subdued and restrained from hurting themselves or others without staff committing violence toward them.

Unless having dangerously crazy people walking the streets is recognized as the root of this problem the powers that be will simply do what is easy, cheap, and visible. They will outlaw and take away guns from law abiding citizens. Thanks for legitimizing their positions and excusing them from any responsibility for improving our broken mental health system.