What Does " mental defective " mean ?

[Diamondback]

Then again, you also have to be careful about drawing false connections... for example, my relatives insist on operating under the assumption that I can't manage my own money and have to run to the accountants to get a permission slip for any expenditure over $100, yet I also have a record of sound judgment with deadly weapons and a young lady I once loved entrusted me with the responsibility of standing watch to protect her from her stalker ex for two years. (And yet they both have me as co-accountholders on their own checking accounts with debit cards attached to those accounts*, and expect me to make travel arrangements as needed and buy the groceries... if I didn't know better I'd swear my mother and my aunt were regularly dropped on their heads as kids.)
*More than once I've had a project projected to cost above the Accountant Signoff Req'd threshold and been told "oh, just use the card on my account... you can pay me back twenty bucks at a time."

Kinda like Ben Carson... brilliant neurosurgeon, utter putz in avoiding getting played by the World's Biggest (and loudest!) Con Artist.

 

[duldej]

It's just the due process clause that matters so much to me. "Mentally defective" does not matter as much, per sé.

So you're adjudicated "mentally defective," and lose some rights. Now what?

If it is a case of temporary, situational depression, or whatever the case is, then when you re-emerge from that, you go to court and explain it all, and get those rights back.

If the above is not a possible scenario, then the problem is the lack of due process part, and not the mentally defective part.

 

[WALawyer]

[apparently the original link got wedged]

This is what led me to ask the question a new proposed rule.
Federal Register | Implementation of the NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007 (https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2016/05/05/2016-10424/implementation-of-the-nics-improvement-amendments-act-of-2007)



"As relevant to our programs, the Federal prohibition on the possession or receipt of firearms or ammunition applies to a person who, in the language of the statute, "has been adjudicated as a mental defective."


These are the existing laws - they already apply and we must comply with them - at time of transfer of FA (and other times like change from being healthy to being 'mental defective' )


18 U.S.C. 922(g)(4). In these rules, we will refer to this prohibition as the "Federal mental health prohibitor" although we also use the statutory language in section 922(g)(4) in our proposed regulatory language below.

18 USC 922:
18 U.S. Code § 922 - Unlawful acts (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/922)
(g)It shall be unlawful for any person—
(4) who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been committed to a mental institution;

see also:
Disarming the vets (https://www.northwestfirearms.com/threads/disarming-the-vets.217499/page-2#post-1429248)



of concern is the phrase -
"Has been" as opposed to "is"

Adjudicate: make a formal judgment or decision about a problem or disputed matter.

ATF defines the term "mental defective" in 27 C.F.R. s 478.11.

 

[PaulB47]

If you actually take the time to read them and understand that they apply to those who are on SSI for mental illness reasons with a whole slew of qualifiers to get to the point where you are put on the NICS list.

This assumes mission creep is not a problem in government. They don't only go to the point that we feel is reasonable, then stop.

If the above is not a possible scenario, then the problem is the lack of due process part, and not the mentally defective part.

As if this government never violated due process. Anyway due process is often just the following of the proper procedure in trampling your liberty.

The real problem is your fear. How likely are any of us to be killed by somebody with dementia? Are we involving government to "solve" a problem that really doesn't exist? There are examples in this thread of people dealing with this in their own families; what's wrong with that solution?

When we are talking about gun control - and that's exactly what this is - I never, never, never trust the government to be looking out for my interest. What I fear is government employees killing me, not old farts with alzheimers. How many people were killed by their own government in the last century?