# Keeping US borders safe **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 7, 2005, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keeping-us-borders-safe/307335 "2005-06-07T19:21:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2005, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keeping-us-borders-safe/307335/161 "2005-06-13T07:21:58Z")
> [@Northern Piper](#): > > You can go to the corner of Yonge & Bloore, or Times Square, and find bizarre characters - they’re a dime a dozen, it sometimes seems, spouting off on God alone knows what. Even saying that you’re a government agent, or a trained assasin, probably doesn’t reach the sufficient standard for civil committment. Psychiatric evaluations can legally be ordered for with much less demonstrable cause for concern. [Here](http://www.boulderweekly.com/archive/050301/waynesword.html) is an example of what most people would probably agree is an abuse of this power. A kid brought a knife to school. > [@](#): > > Moments after Andrew was caught with the camping knife, a vice principal called his mom. A stern, cold voice on the phone told her: “Your child brought a weapon to school and police have been contacted.” […] > > Police made a report and Andrew was expelled from school‹immediately and permanently. The police forced a “psychiatric evaluation” on him, and next week he’ll be in court facing potential charges. Authorities are concerned about school violence, so they take no chances. A _clearly_ delusional person who thinks he has a license to kill and is equipped with an assortment of weapons, a visibly bloody chainsaw, restraint devices, and a bullet-proof vest is a much more obvious example of someone who might “reasonably believed to pose a threat to himself or others,” which is the standard. Here’s [another example](http://www.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/len/2000/12.31/nypd.html) where it’s difficult to say exactly _why_ officers felt the deranged fellow might harm someone: > [@](#): > > Recently, said Gary Margolis, chief of campus police for the University of Vermont, a student was arrested for trespassing. During the arrest, however, he started reciting baseball scores. Realizing there was something wrong with him, the department called in the county mobile crisis unit to conduct a psychiatric evaluation, along with the university’s academic affairs department, its counseling department and the young man’s parents. [Here’s a man who had an involuntary psych evaluation](http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/local/states/texas/arlington/10466459.htm) (and had his legally-owned weapons seized) when someone reported that he might be suicidal: > [@](#): > > “I was talking to my nurse about the pain in my leg and hip,” he said. “I wasn’t wanting to dance a jig, but I wasn’t wanting to kill myself.” > > Carmichael left his house peacefully. Officers took him to a hospital for mental evaluation and seized his weapons. City attorneys are negotiating with Carmichael’s attorney, Ken Whiteley, a municipal judge in Hurst. Whiteley says his longtime friend is not a danger to himself or others. > > “They want to release the weapons to me if we sign a waiver, but Mr. Carmichael wasn’t comfortable signing,” Whiteley said. “The thing is, after he left the hospital, he could have stopped off at any pawnshop and bought a hundred guns.” > > Assistant City Attorney Kathleen Weisskopf said that police have the legal right to seize weapons if officers believe that their owner is a threat. All federal law enforcement officers (including U.S. border security) can order someone held for psychiatric evaluation at their discretion if they have reason to believe they might harm themselves or someone else. It’s a common sense thing. The above examples aren’t exactly strong arguments for this power, but instances where it’s sensibly applied aren’t as newsworthy. But they illustrate that it was well within the power of U.S. Border Security to exercise their discretion to order a psychiatric evalution in this case. This was _exactly_ the sort of situation that the laws that authorize these powers were designed for. It’s commonsensical that someone who sincerely believes that they are an NSA agent, a U.S. Marine, a super-sniper assassin, or whatever, that they have a license to kill – and their delusion manifests in such a way that they present wearing combat armour, carrying a bloody chainsaw, and a bag of lethal implements is someone who might reasonably be considered a threat. If they’re confused about who _they_ are, they might easily be confused about who the guy behind the counter at the convenience store is. Or anyone else. When situations like _this_ result in the hospitalization of an afflicted person, _they’re not news_. It’s just the system working. When people use this option on a middle-schooler with a pen-knife, it’s something to talk about. When they neglect to use it on a bloody chainsaw-wielding psychotic, well, that’s something to talk about to. Nobody talks when things go the way they’re supposed to. > [@Northern Piper](#): > > That option wouldn’t be available here, because the customs guards had no reason to believe that he had committed an offence under U.S. law, other than the odd statements he made. They seem to have concluded that those statements, taken together, were not sufficient to warrant charges. If so, a criminal psych evaluation wouldn’t be available, since charges are a prerequisate. As has been mentioned several times, he provided false information to Border Security, and misrepresented himself as a member of the armed forces. It’s been argued that it doesn’t make sense to charge him with that if you know he’s delusional, but that doesn’t follow. The law is the law. If the aim is public safety, this would be a perfectly valid reason to take him into custody and have a better look at him. ---
**Author:** ![Zabali\_Clawbane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecd19e/32.png) [@Zabali\_Clawbane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zabali_Clawbane)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2005, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keeping-us-borders-safe/307335/162 "2005-06-13T09:13:16Z")
> [@Larry Mudd](#): > > They can only concern themselves with U.S. law. By the time he was talking to them, his brass knuckles _were_ legal. Knowing that he committed a crime in Canada by walking around with them doesn’t matter. The most they could do was ask him to voluntarily walk back across the line and turn himself in for it. > > It does seem that (unless they were under the impression the Canadian authorities were expiditing warrants and extradition paperwork) the only real option they had was having him held for psychiatric evaluation. I thought that the border crossing area was a “no man’s land” and that you weren’t technically in the country until you were out of that area and had “crossed the border”. This is what I was basing my question on. So, how are the laws enforced then? I’d think that the guards would have common sense enough to not let in someone who was violating one country’s weapon laws. (Haven’t they kicked people out of the country, or denied them citizenship for relatively minor violations that occurred in another country?) In any case, as another poster pointed out, he did lie and misrepresent himself which is illegal in the country he was crossing into, and should have been verified. (Especially so considering how outlandish his claims were.) ---
**Author:** ![TwistofFate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@TwistofFate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwistofFate)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2005, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keeping-us-borders-safe/307335/163 "2005-06-13T12:02:42Z")
Wow. The lack of work after The Goonies really must have hit Sloth hard. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/keeping-us-borders-safe/307335.md?page=8)