Posted on 02/11/2013 3:22:10 PM PST by Kaslin
Missouri House Bill 402 is a major step forward reducing gun violence, domestic violence, and other forms of serious violence. For decades, federal and state policy attempting to impact these growing problems failed because the policies were pointed in the wrong direction.
Substance abuse in the family is the leading factor and primary driver of many kinds of gun-related crimes, domestic violence, and other offenses.
Substance abuse is tightly bound to domestic violence. Three-quarters of serious domestic violence is associated with substance abuse at the time of violence (Fig 3). This statistic does not include substance abusers who were not “loaded” at the time of violence.
When gun violence takes place, our problem is not loaded guns. It is “loaded” individuals, most often raised outside marriage, who borrowed or stole a gun from somebody else.
Nearly half of gun-related violence is associated with substance abuse at the time of the offense (Table 28). We do not know how many of these offenses involve substance abusers not “loaded” at the time of the offense. Individuals raised by substance-abusing parents, and individuals raised outside intact marriages are 2.5 times more likely to commit an act of gun violence (Table 6).
Two-thirds of other violent crimes involve substance abuse at the time of the offense (Fig 5). The latest National Crime Victimization Surveys reports find that drugs and alcohol are a leading factor in many kinds of criminal offenses. Nearly three-fourths of federal prisoners admitted using drugs in 2007 – up from 60% in 1990 (Table 3). Substance abuse rates for female offenders are even higher (Table 6). Few offenders have ever had substance abuse treatment, and participation in recovery programs has declined since 1991.
Missouri House Bill 402 takes the bull by the horns. Substance abuse in the family has never been addressed with policy empowering non-substance-abusing spouses the ability to leverage the troubled spouse into recovery. Spouses have to “live with it” or get a divorce. Most individuals do not like those options. They just want their partner to get into recovery.
Our legislation creates a “Family Intervention Order”. If your spouse is a substance abuser, a restraining order gives control of the family to you. The substance abuser has only two choices: seek recovery or “lose it all”. Nothing is more likely to reliably result in recovery than this. The Family Intervention Order is ideal because it is self-balancing within families and does not give the nanny-state power to interfere in families.
By taking substance abuse in the family seriously, and giving spouses a power tool to save marriages and build future marriages, everybody wins:
- Future gun violence will be prevented.
- Future divorces will be prevented and more cohabiting individuals will marry. Reducing divorce and improving marriage rates by only 10% in Missouri will save the state $180-million the first year alone – compounding annually.
- With improving marriage rates, we will see corresponding decreases in family violence, violence against women, crime, child abuse, and child neglect.
- Motor vehicle fatalities and accidents will decrease.
- Insurance companies will have fewer claims for accidents.
- Unmarried individuals have significantly higher rates of psychological and stress-related physical disorders. Insurance companies will see significant reductions in claims.
- Health care actuarial metrics will change. We will see fewer low-income individuals requiring free health care.
- Many individuals will be moved from welfare and poverty to happier and safer marriages.
- Banks, mortgage companies, and credit card companies will benefit from fewer bankruptcies and non-collectables.
- Businesses will see higher employee productivity. Individuals in troubled families do not perform as well at work and miss more work.
- States will see demand spending needs shrink. Governors and legislatures will not have to settle for a “buckdancer’s choice” hiking taxes, cutting-off needy individuals, or cutting essential services.
We encourage other states to consider the wisdom of enacting proactive marriage-positive socioeconomic policy. An ounce of prevention will save trillions in downstream cures.
If making a law could solve a problem, we would have no problems by now. This whole foolish framework ignores the reality of sin. People are sinners. People break laws.
If adding laws against substance abuse could solve violence problems, why not just make violence illegal?
You cannot replace a rightous God and His will with a book of laws anymore than you can solve problems involving time with three D math. Apples and Oranges.
God is about Will, not Law. But we do not understand Will, so he made Law’s from his Will. Take God out of the equation of life, and you end up with a totally unsolvable problem. Try to live in freedom without His Law, and you end up enslaved in millions of mans laws.
That is why, In God we Trust worked so well. Because there is a God to enforce it.
One judge I knew of had an interesting solution for domestic violence.
Restraining orders were issued against mostly males, and he was annoyed with violations of those orders resulting in abused women appearing before him repeatedly. So his solution was a bench order, ordering the woman to be armed.
And if she could not afford a gun and bullets, he provided them for her out of his own pocket.
No shootings resulted, but the number of women appearing before him dropped to zero.
The results were impressive enough so that the police, also sick of repeat domestic violence, chipped in to help the judge provide women with guns and bullets.
This worked very well, but the judge’s successor did not continue the idea.
Trying to not knee jerk my reaction to this “family intervention order” and the double speak accompanying it. (wait 10 seconds..o.k 2 minutes) So, you "create" legislation. By creating legislation then that means you are keeping the nanny state out? I don't know. I got a feeling this was sponsored, written probably, by a feminazi
So you just stand there and shrug your shoulders, instead of trying to do something about it?
"Doing something about it" when you do not address the actual causes does more harm than good. "Doing something" about terrorism is why the TSA fondles our genetalia every time we fly. Missouri is refusing to recognize that substance abuse is a symptom and not a cuase. This law will not decrease domestic violence, nor gun crime any more (and probably less so) than the laws against the actual crimes. What this law will certainly do is give divorce lawyers another tool to add to their reptoire of decietfulness, and give future leftists another government framework with which to destroy families.
To actually address the problem my suggestion would be twofold. First to increase the penalties for assault, and second to openly and unabashedly state (officially) that a society without God is naturally going to be more brutal and violent.
Years ago I had neighbors who scrapped every Saturday night like clockwork. Every so often it would get violent and the cops would get called in. The guy was a spindly little featherweight who was a heavy juicer. The woman (I never did find out of they were married) was a Very Large Female. On occasion he would get a lick or two in but every time it was her knocking the crap outta him
And the cops would come in and drag him off to the hoosegow.
Why does anyone stay in an abusive relationship?
Because I am living my life by God’s laws, I tend to not be the problem. And as I have not lost focus as to the solution, I am also part of the cure in a few cases.
My father taught me never to strike a lady.
But he also told me “son, when she draws back on you the second time she ceases to be a lady”
Personally, the way I see it, I would never strike my woman. She knows where all my guns are (or were, before the boating assident).
My Granny, born in Ireland around 1896, told me: “Never ball yer fist and strike a lady, you’re no gentleman if you do. But if she persists, she’s no “lady,” and its perfectly acceptable to put her over your knee. Son, no woman is ever too old to be spanked! Just use your hand and when your hand hurts, so does her bum, and you’ve made your point.”
Katherine knew what she was about.
I know I’ll get flamed big time for this, but modern women got nothing at all on Katherine, God Bless Her Soul and what she taught me.
Oh, there's no way this would EVER be abused by a vindictive spouse.
As for the claim that this "does not give the nanny-state power to interfere in families"...who enforces this? What happens if the reporting spouse changes his/her mind, does the nanny-state back off? Do they prosecute the reporting spouse for false reporting?
There is a whole lot that can go wrong with this.
Add this:
ALL persons receiving ANY KIND of public assistance will have to take random drug tests regularly and MUST pass them clean every time.
Otherwise, all assistance will be instantly stopped and not restarted.
Food stamps—Medicaid—Section 8 housing—free school lunches—welfare payments—free medical—free legal—free bus passes.....etc.
I think this is the part that keeps the nanny state out:
"455.105. 2. A petitioner who alleges to have a family chemical substance abuser as a member of his or her family or household may seek relief [...] Nothing in this section shall be construed as allowing any state agency, guardian ad litem, or other organization or entity standing to file a petition for a family intervention order."
Not much vindiction to be had here - all the accused is required to do is undergo an "evaluation conducted at a chemical dependency treatment center."
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