I don’t believe you should have access to a gun. I don’t believe someone going through a nasty divorce or breakup who has displyed unstable behavior should have access to a gun. Meaning anyone in their home should have the guns locked up solid.
Why exactly should I not have access to a gun?
Do I have any other rights or freedoms you’d like to curtail?
Good point about any other rights, no I wouldn’t. I wish I could give a better arguement as to why I think guns are different. I have absolutely no bad feelings toward you personaly but if I were making decisions on high risk gun owners you would have to be considered at an elevated risk because of your history. Upon further evaluation by a proffessional that might change depending on how a law was written. Too many people getting killed. We need to tighten up a bit.
What history? I do not have a history of violent behavior. I have never attempted to kill myself or anybody else. I have never been arrested for anything. Again, what history?
I forgot to say-
I have also never been involuntarily committed.
Yes, because not owning a gun will terribly impede your existence.
“Innocent until proven guilty” may have colloquial connotations, but the fact remains that the government may not deprive someone of their rights without proving a case against them. What we were specifically discussing is not banning guns, but presuming that an individual who wishes to buy a gun is prohibited, and forcing them to prove their innocence (or sanity) before being permitted to exercise their right. That’s what I think is wrong.
And yes, there is actually an excellent reason we can’t classify guns illegal: the second amendment. Strictly speaking, nowhere in the Constitution is any power granted that would permit the federal government to ban guns, so the second amendment shouldn’t be necessary. But neither does it grant the power to criminalize heroin, and yet clearly the government has done so. Hamilton was well-intended but wrong, and I thank Jefferson every day that we have a Bill of Rights.
And putting guns in the same class as heroin and child porn is emotionally-charged flim-flammery. Child porn has actual victims; and as far as I’m concerned, heroin should be legal.
I’ve said in numerous threads here recently that I wouldn’t really mind seeing licensing and registration for handguns. They’re far and away the most popular murder implement; if you look at the graphs you’ll see a few lines down at the bottom: knives, bare hands, shotguns, military-grade assault weapons, each with their own tiny body count – and then handguns rising above all the rest in a meteoric arc of death. Given the likely social benefits of reducing the supply of handguns in the hands of criminals, I think there’s more justification for regulatory hoops like licensing.
If you restrict handgun purchases to those who are willing to undergo the training and extra legal scrutiny, legitimate handgun purchases will immediately skew toward the responsible end of the bell curve. Preserve accountability by requiring that owners can only sell their guns to other handgun license holders, and they must register the sale, with civil or criminal penalties if the gun ends up in a bad way and they’re the last registered owner. Combine this with a national CCW standard and you could get broad enough support even from gun owners to get the thing passed.
I’m quite comfortable with the status quo; the fear of being shot is almost as far from my mind as the fear of starving. But I’m privileged: white, middle class, home in a low-crime area. If I were a poor black urban youth my outlook would be different. My comfort and safety aren’t a reason to ignore the six or eight thousand handgun murders every year. I think a scheme like the one I describe would be tolerable for lawful gun owners and do a lot of good eventually, once the supply of guns in the hands of criminals began to dwindle.
I have not and never will support bans on specific types of firearms (e.g., assault weapons), nor on any particular magazine sizes. These are unproductive and excessively infringing, and even if they worked perfectly would not have a measurable impact on our national gun violence rates.
:eek:
Gun rights be damned! you’d let the whole bill of rights go in a twinkling. I find your sentiments alarming: I can only hope it is a small minority of my countrymen that share them, but I’d give up all gun rights in a heartbeat to prevent your view of government from prevailing. I do not think it is “silly” or “semantic” – our very nation is founded on the principle that a government derives its just power from the consent of the governed; that the people collectively construct their government by yielding to it certain powers.
In your conception, apparently, government is imposed from without (by what almighty force? God?) and it, on the contrary, deigns to lift the people from their natural state of slavery by granting them certain privileges.
The difference between these two views is extremely important. One emphasizes that the government does not have the power to do whatever it pleases, and that in order to expand its powers it must obtain an expanded mandate from its people (or, in our model, from the people by proxy of the elected legislature and the states themselves). The other, it seems to me, holds the people in contempt and in a dormant thralldom which is kept in abeyance only by the fiat of their rulers.
I like my system better. I think it’s worth fighting for. The government that is in your mind, I wouldn’t piss on if it were on fire.
You quoted my post. It contained two questions. You answered neither of them.
As for your post, I wasn’t aware I had to show that taking away a constitutional right would ‘impede my existence’.
But surely this reaction would only occur if you were a gun freak already. Mental illness can disqualify you from a whole lot more of life than not being able to go to the shooting range would. You have to make the choices in your life as to which was more valuable to you so unless guns have damned near become essential to your existence you would make the right choice.
I’m not pro gun control. I never have been. I’ve shot competitively and I grew up in the gun culture. I’m comfortable in open carry states. I get the appeal but I don’t have a gun. I made that very real choice when one day last year, after getting a new job and loving it, being very happy, I laid on my bed and casually thought 'if I’d bought that gun like I wanted I’d stick it in my mouth and pull the trigger.
I don’t think I meant it but the fact was, not having one gave me a reason to reflect and it scared me how attractive the idea sounded. Nope, I’ll go shooting with my friends but have one that I can access on a whim, no thanks.
If I had to choose between getting better mentally and never having a gun vs having a gun and being miserable even when things are great, I couldn’t care less about the gun. It affects a small portion of my life compared to, well, my entire life.
So, it doesn’t mean I’m pro gun control but I disagree that on the whole, a ban like this is going to drive that many people away from getting treatment from life affecting illnesses. People don’t need more reasons to avoid treatment than they already have, I can’t see not being able to own a gun ( and if this happens it really needs to be time limited and 5 years for a minor mental issue to me seems draconian but numbers can be agreed upon ) as being the deal breaker which is going to empty the treatment facilities.
Neither will disenfranchisement.
No, you only have to think a gun related hobby or security based employment (or, you know, ever having to defend yourself) is a possibility that may occur in your life, while not having the highest opinion of mental health care. I’d hardly call that a “gun freak”.
Again: Who designs the standard test? Who deems someone unfit? Who selects the doctors?
You would deem the upthread poster unfit to own a gun. What if out of 10 doctors, 7 would deem him fit, and 3 unfit? Can he doctor shop?
What if it is reported that a doctor has privately said that “nobody is sane enough to own a gun”? Does he get removed from the “approved” list of doctors to judge sanity for gun ownership? Criminal or civil penalties?
What if it is reported that a doctor has privately said that “as long a person can walk into my office, he is sane enough to own a gun”? Does he get removed from the “approved” list of doctors to judge sanity for gun ownership? Criminal or civil penalties?
Who decides what statements in between these two extremes merit removal from the list?
I think there are two issues involved here, having a mental illness vs being mentally ill. Having a mental illness that you are treating to good effect should not disqualify you from owning a gun. Being mentall ill depending on the illness maybe should.
I haven’t really thought about this so it’s rough but to me, it’s far more important where you are, not where you’ve been.
So, to get a new gun license you’d need three things:
- A background check for felonies.
- A note from a practicing mental health professional stating that you are mentally able to own a handgun. Ok, don’t call it that but basically they will talk to you and make their evaluation of you as mental health guys instead of governmentally tied in any way. Only they will have access, if needed, to your long term mental history so there will be no way it could be used against you and since you only ever apply for the gun with one of these notes already you won’t be discouraged from seeking mental help as needed as it won’t disqualify you for anything.
Nope, I enjoy gun related hobbies and I don’t want to be a security guard ( which I have done in my past, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be ). I like guns and the gun culture but I don’t like it enough that I’d live with an untreated mental health issue to keep them. That’s my point, you have to have weighed the options and found that gun ownership is more important than your mental health.
That’s a much higher level than hey, I possibly may want to do something that’s legally available but I’m not doing now. I’m willing to suffer very real issues now to keep that option open.
I think you’re missing the fact that there aren’t a whole lot of mental health success stories. When you’re not that likely to get better even if you do seek treatment, it doesn’t take much to discourage even trying.
EDIT: I agree that I’m biased here (but not so much so that I think mental healthcare isn’t worth trying), but it seems to be a common opinion.
I thought about that when writing my post but concluded that this really is a totally different issue entirely because you’d tend not to go to mental health guys if you don’t believe they’d work gun issue or not. Guns are the red herring.
Right. Some people won’t get treatment regardless. Some people will no matter what. I just think there are a whole lot of people on the margin who would go, except they’re discouraged because they might lose their gun rights (or have to take “zombie” medicine, or the stigma, etc.).
There are several reasons someone who might otherwise seek treatment would forgo it, but we don’t need to give them any more discouragement in the form of stripping their rights, however remote that outcome might be.
Does anybody have any statistics on how likely mentally ill people are to commit murder compared to the “healthy” portion of the population? Because after all this, I’m just not seeing it as an issue. It’s like the AWB. Flash suppressors and barrel shrouds are scary, let’s ban them. Crazy people are scary, let’s restrict their rights. Even though neither effort is/would be effective.
FWIW, pilots are required to get medicals every few months/years and there is a question on the form to the effect “In the past seven years, have you been to see a mental health professional?”. Presumably, if the applicant is honest and responds yes, then the physician would follow up with those practitioners.
Of course, the analogy weakens as many would point out gun ownership is a right, unlike flying an airplane.
And where I live, if someone wants a permit to purchase a gun the cops come around and talk with the neighbors–not sure, but this seems to include neighbors the applicant hasn’t listed as references. It’s a ~soft way around more formal mental health vetting. (And yes, obviously prone to its own faults.)
I’d love to know if were just talking about psychological testing or actual brain imaging 'cause,
I’m pretty sure they did some of those psychological tests on me when I was a teen, and they did not catch the early stages of my depression. After ~30 years of just coping with it I finally sought drug treatment (from my PCP who finally sent me to a psychiatrist since it really wasn’t my PCP’s area of expertise) The only question relevant to the question of this thread? “Are you having any thoughts about hurting yourself or others?” Knowing the possible repercussions of answering the first part honestly, involuntary commitment, I have to answer the stupid* question in essay form.
- Stupid because if I was seriously suicidal the last place I would be is in a psychiatrist’s office seeking a prescription for a SSNRI!
It ain’t rocket surgery to figure out that the answers you give to a MD when you’re seeking help ain’t the answers you give to a LEO when you’d like to spend that night in your own bed or be a firearms owner!
Sorry, but there really isn’t, right now, very much that’s going to accomplish the desired goal.
CMC
Mentally ill owner of four handguns that is never going on a killing spree.
Which also does happen, to felons for example. Considering gun ownernship is more dangerous then voting, maybe a higher set of requirements is needed.