Posted on 11/26/2005 5:31:11 PM PST by NormsRevenge
They can't focus on the madmen and criminals because they are too busy trying to prevent honest responsible citizens from getting guns.
Who will define what "mentally-ill" is?
Will someday the act of voting for a Republican or being associated with the NRA, GOA, etc... be considered a form of mental illness?
They seem to be trying to do this in Massachusettes at present.
People with recognized mental illness have no business owning firearms. Besides, why does Howard Dean need a gun?
To me prohibiting firearms purchases from those who have serious mental disabilities is common sense. The "patient" forfeits his privacy when he completes the background check which is required for public safety just as an airline pilot who has a serious drug or alcohol problem forfeits his privacy by being required to take the appropriate tests required to assure safety. Most important, those who oppose such testing only provide more ammunition for the anti-gun crowd.
I'm an LEO and I am also a former FFL holder that has some knowledge of both sides of the fence on this topic.
The thing about a persons mental condition is that in order to be refused "Permission To Purchase" which is what the federal form is for and not "Registration of a Firearm" is that you have to be Judicially Restricted from firearm purchase. In other words you have to be taken before a court of law and be charged by the Judge that you are not to purchase or own a firearm because of your clinicly determined mental condion. This does not mean that if you had a bad romantic breakup and spent the weekend in a clinic that you can no longer own a firearm.
Between domestic violence and felony convictions there are many that can no longer possess a weapon legally. Some are unjustly forbidden in my opinion due to divorce domestic charges levied against men unjustly by women to adjecate their divorce proceedings with these charges of violence against them. I see it all of the time in my job and I still have to charge the subject or both subjects and let the judge and jury determine who is telling the truth.
I guess I have seen domestic violence charges used as a weapon to many times instead of a defense against real violence in these situations.
Most states have privacy laws barring such information from being shared with law enforcement.
Well, only one solution to that problem: Make firearm ownership as widespread as possible, so that they no longer appear to be something out of the ordinary, and that therefore crazy people won't develop an irrational fixation on them.
It's as though you were to heavily restrict ownership of knives or matches. That would instantly turn them into objects of obsession for certain characters.
Now that is an interesting thought.
Unfortunately, this is sort of tacit admission that cops are set against gun owners in the great gun ownership debate. Too bad, I wish they were on our side and not against us.
"Common sense?" What is "serious?" What is a "mental disability?" Who gets to decide these questions? Chuck Schumer? Hillary Clinton? You use the words and the mechanisms of gun grabbers - nebulous, undefined and expansive terms (like "assault weapon" or "sniper rifle") that can mean anything and everything, and anyone who disagrees lacks "common sense."
The "patient" forfeits his privacy when he completes the background check which is required for public safety
There is zero evidence that any such gun control law actually enhances public safety, and you choose to abrogate a Constitutional right based on nothing other than the words of gun grabbers to do so. (If there is such evidence, please provide it.)
Most important, those who oppose such testing only provide more ammunition for the anti-gun crowd.
Are you sure you're not a gun grabber? "Please support and adopt the following gun control laws, or it will merely provide more support to the gun grabbers." When we sell out this round, which new laws will you advise us to sell out? Mandatory storage? Bans on which weapons? No CCW anywhere? They too have been promised will "enhance public safety" - also without any evidence of actually doing so.
I'm an LEO and I am also a former FFL holder that has some knowledge of both sides of the fence on this topic.
"Unfortunately, this is sort of tacit admission that cops are set against gun owners in the great gun ownership debate. Too bad, I wish they were on our side and not against us."
What are you talking about? Are you so blindly biased that you interpret that I am against the common gun owner?
My point was that many male gun owners are unjustly accused of domestic violence charges to support the divorce cases of women. I also believe it is supported or even suggested by lawyers and is used as a tool against you. Duh!
The problem is that the law has to be upheld and that I have to arrest a subject with a warrant issued against them without choice. A judicial commissioner will issue a warrant when there was not even a call made or scene to determine who was the aggressor or who was not.Many warrants are coordinated through a womens abuse office and not our intervention. So Joe Public has to appear in court and face a judge with only her allegations to the commissioner and Representative from Haven of Hope or who ever to go on.
Just to make you feel better, I have answered calls where the female placed the call to 911 and she was the one determined the aggressor upon arrival. She was the one that went to jail,I remember one proclaiming that I could not take her into custody because she was the one who made the call. She was determined to be the aggressor and he was the victim of her violent behavior so she went to jail.
My only admission is that the system is biased, not the LEO. Your Vote for legislators is what makes the laws not us.
Now to address the other side. I am not biased against the female gender, but sometimes when the shoe fits it just fits. I'm not saying that all women do this or that all men are unjustly accused. But I am saying it happens many times.
To first address your implied innuendo that I am a "gun grabber", I possess a firearm and can provide you with my NRA membership number. If you are serious and not rhetorical in your question what is a "mental disability" I need only remind you that in our society psychologists and psychiatrists and other mental health experts make these determinations routinely in the public interest about an individuals mental stability and capacity to perform certain functions or to serve in certain capacities -- including the U.S. military. On the personal level I know some people who have been diagnosed as mentally incompetent by professionals and -- thank God! - have been precluded from purchasing firearms. Even in the original post the FBI said that such tests "will save lives". Or is the FBI part of your conspiratorial group of imaginary "gun grabbers"? Even such pro-gun researchers as John Lott ("More Guns, Less Crime") says that the prevention of psychologically unstable people from acquiring firearms is just as important as preventing felons from acquiring them. And yes, if we have no psychological standards for firearm possession we will indeed become the poster boys and laughing-stocks of the Schumers and anti-gun lobby. I can see them citing the very same thing that was mentioned in the original post about the person with a history of mental illness who murdered two policemen. And I can hear their laughter at the stupidity of the pro-gun advocates who want to arm such.
Would you include folks suffering from depression? That's going to cover millions and millions of folks. Things like schizophrenia I could agree with. But I think that allowing this one is giving too much power to the government. I could see a day when the liberals are in charge and a pattern of behavior becomes a pathology. Like membership in progun organizations and having a CCW permit was linked to being in a militia by Janet Reno and Clinton. She once said that anybody who attended church more than once a week; who believed in the 2nd coming of Christ; and who owned a gun was a candidate for "government intervention." I know, I saw the CNN interview where she said that! I think anybody who has been adjudicated by a court of law as mentally incompetent should be subject to the application of current law and that no further laws are needed.
I have mixed feeling about the issue. A person wise enough to realize a mental problem exists and seeks treatment will lose 2nd Amendment rights. A not so wise person who ducks the issue and never seeks treatment will keep the rights.
lol, what about ADD/ADHD? Ban them from guns too? heh heh... :)
As far as I know, at this time it is impossible to detect beforehand when someone will go beserk and start shooting. I can't see how anyone can make a case for witholding firearms from the "mentally ill" except in the most extreme cases.
In my psych training in nursing school, we were taught that we are all a different shade of gray--meaning that each person's mental facilities are unique to that person, and that all of us have some sort of mental "quirk".
I guess the gun grabbers must think that they have it all figured out, and are ready to start labeling people according to some arbitrary norm they have developed.
I wonder if the day will come when psychiatrists will be charged with a crime if some patient of theirs commits a gun crime.
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