Did you try to have him involuntarily committed? Sorry for your loss, but what active steps did you take?
Oregon already has a process for involuntary civil commitment. The rules are contained in chapter 426 of the Oregon code. The involuntary holds can be up to 5 days - the determination hearing is not ex parte.
In CA, it’s called a 5150 and is a 72 hour hold. Here is a state by state summaryof how the involuntary holds work in each state.
The proposed law would make it easier to remove firearms from people, but it specifically excludes mental health as an available rationale so the existing guidelines under chapter 426 for mental health holds would still apply. This law would make it easier to strip 2nd amendment rights from everyone else.
Unfortunately his problems stemmed from his overseas military service and the “help” he was waiting to receive from the VA. It turns out the military is a bit reluctant to admit that that when their boys come home they might be a bit…broken. He tried to tell them that he needed more help than what he was receiving, but it didn’t help speed the process.
Yes, the military has a long history of using and abandoning their people. What active steps did you take? I’m not sure a law could be written and passed that would have helped your nephew without the process having been initiated by someone close to him.
This touches on another concern of mine. What means are used to determine who should be subject to such an order? Does Officer Smith decide he should apply for an order because he thinks someone he contacted during a domestic dispute call seemed depressed so he might be suicidal? Does Jane Doe apply for an order because she got in an argument and broke up with her live in boyfriend? Yes, a judge decides whether an order should be granted or not but there needs to be more stringent criteria about determining under what cases an application should be made to begin with.
The summary of the bill reads that the application for such order would be by law enforcement personnel, or family or household member of such person. But by what training or insight do they have to determine that a person is suicidal? Bob seems angry, but Bob was just diagnosed with cancer and he is upset that life does not seem fair. Does Bob’s roommate have a right to that information or does the roommate just charge ahead and file for an order?
Overly broad criteria such as DrCube mentions with Illinois law may sweep up persons into a process of needing to unnecessarily defend their rights.
Additional problems. The petitioner requesting an order may get the order granted in an ex parte manner within one day but a respondent challenging the grant of an order may be stonewalled up to 21 days after requesting a hearing before getting a hearing. That is an unreasonable bias in favor of the petitioner.
Should the court continue the hearing to a later date the order remains in place. Given the state of the courts systems this could drag on repeatedly, effectively denying the subject of such an order any true means of appeal for much longer than the envisioned 21 days.
And one final objection. The subject of such an order has a right to request a hearing, but only one hearing in a 12 month period. Circumstances can substantially change in less than one year. Additional opportunity to challenge such an order should be afforded to the respondent should circumstances change.
Studies in many different cultures/ countries have shown that the urge to actually commit suicide spikes suddenly, and how many suicides are succesful depends on how easy it is at that moment to comit suicide. Eating a gun if it’s in the house is easy; driving somewhere or getting up a building is often too much effort at that moment.
One famous study is the permanent drop after GB switched away from gas ovens. Many women committed suicide by sticking their head in the oven; after switching to electric, the rate dropped and didn’t rise because of other methods.
Or Golden Gate bridge: after a railing was added, rates of tries dropped.
Institituion would be helpful to start therapy to adress the underlying causes - provided you give enough money to have enough mentall health doctors or therapists available.
You do know that police can already take away all your property under these civil forfeiture laws, right? With no accusation or trial necessary, or chance of getting your stuff back?
And what about the civil rights of civilians being shot by the police or other citizens for being the wrong colour, without the guilty person being charged, or often not even investigated?
Sounds as if it’s no problem taking away the rights of black people, but a big problem to take away the rights of white gun owners.
And we now have proof that everything on the SDMB can be made to be about racism or rape.
Not saying that Czarcasm is saying this but I do believe that some folks in our society think that any soldier coming home from war should be institutionalized due to their belief in that every veteran is a Sociopathic Soldier.
I think everybody’s overestimating Oregon’s financial ability to impose all these dire predictions … we’re giving Czarcasm a tool to save his nephew’s life … not sure the government can abuse this without spending money …
What’s stopping someone saying that everyone is an immediate danger in front of an anti-gun judge?
I didn’t know that!
What law, specifically, allows this?
Yes, no doubt the minute this law passes some radical judge will order all guns in Oregon confiscated! And then the black helicopters will swoop down and Barack Hussein Obama will herd us all into re-education camps and make us get gay married! Oh noes!!!
Yes, I was being hyperbolic, but the point is that you’ve got to think about how a law can be abused.
Like FDR ordered Japanese Americans into concentration camps?
Or, let them. I think suicide is a basic human right- if there are such things. Now, sure, we also have the right to try and talk them out of it.
Is the OP going to address post 26?
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20183504&postcount=26
Sure.
I don’t wish to get into abortion rights in this thread. Bringing up guns in an analogy was a big enough distraction.
Which railing? The suicide barriers that they started putting in last month, and aren’t finished yet? I don’t think you can draw conclusions about that eficacy quite yet. The existing railings pretty much anyone can climb. Also that’s not a good analogy; if the total rate of suicides or suicide attempts by any means went down, then that’d be a good comparison. Also you have people traveling to SF specifically to commit suicide there, that’s not trivial and will skew the local suicide rate.
This.
Oregon has a (deeply flawed) Death with Dignity law, allowing for physician-assisted suicide. To take another suicide option off the table is ridiculous and hypocritical, and to do so in this flawed a manner is a horrible step to take.