I’m all in favor of getting people access to the mental health they need.
But what if they don’t want it?
We are, in this country, very sensitive to civil liberties. So in case it hasn’t escaped you, if The Power to Take Away Guns is the first step on the road to tyranny (as we keep being told), then The Power to Commit People To Mental Hospitals is right up there with it. You just have to look around the world and history to see that.
Unless someone has committed a demonstrable crime, it’s very, very hard to force them to start treatment, let alone continue treatment. And, honestly, while that’s sad, I’m not sure it’s the wrong course.
And let’s not even start with Trump (or his GOP cohorts), who’ve taken to talking a big game about mental health to deflect from the idea of gun restrictions:
After other mass shootings, Trump has suggested the need for mental health reform. But just this week, for the second year in a row, his budget proposed deep cuts to the nation’s mental health programs and programs meant to help prevent crime in schools and assist them in recovery from tragedies.
He has also proposed slashing billions of dollars from other social safety nets like Medicaid, which millions of Americans rely on to get mental health treatment, and he’s pushed the repeal of Obamacare, which includes coverage protections for those with mental illness.
And, of course, when presented with an opportunity to address the idea of potentially mentally ill people getting firearms, he was happy to throw the idea under the bus.
Policy experts and lawmakers have tried reforming the background check system to include more people, but Trump’s reversal of an Obama-era regulation did the opposite. The rule required the Social Security Administration to report people on disability insurance who had severe mental illness and required someone else to file for them, to the FBI’s background check system to prohibit them from purchasing a gun.
(Though that one’s a bit more nuanced, as the issue at hand is not mental illness per se, but violent mental illness. Needless to say, though, Trump’s action here was anything but nuanced.)
There are, as always, no quick and easy answers, and mass shootings of this sort are, themselves, statistical aberrations of the sort that make very poor public policy (as anyone who’s had to take off their shoes at the airport knows too well). But people calling for more proactive treatment of mental illness need to consider the implications of some of the suggestions they are making. And people calling for more care to be available to people with mental illness shouldn’t be implicitly be adding “… if they can afford it” to their policy statements.
How the alleged Florida shooter escaped years of warnings – POLITICO
That’s very true. My brother is bipolar and is schizophrenic and he denied help for many years. It’s frustrating thinking that that’s the only solution with no sensible gun control for weapons of war. Personal safety fire arms are understandably needed, but who hunts with an AR15?
I agree with you Dave I have a daughter who has mental health and they gave her meds she will not take them😖😖
The standard for action that I recall from days when others' mental illness was something I had to address — is this person a threat to themselves or others is both highly subjective and something that is responded to much more easily when there is actual harm already caused (at which point, of course, it's too late to avert that harm).
But one can just imagine how such a standard could be (has been) abused by people looking to abuse others. Making it easier to forceably commit others (even if you have a mental health system that could handle it) would lead to its own tragedies.
+Stacy Sanchez Apparently a number of people do, e.g., http://time.com/4390506/gun-control-ar-15-semiautomatic-rifles/, https://www.realtree.com/guns-and-shooting/articles/how-to-set-up-an-ar-15-for-hunting, http://www.northamericanwhitetail.com/rifles/best-ars-deer-hunting/, http://www.gameandfishmag.com/guns-shooting/10-best-hunting-ars/
+Stacy Sanchez AR15's look all assaulty, but they're fundamentally no different than any other semiautomatic rifle.
Government can not ban all large knives because someone was killed by a large knife
There are also big jurisdictional issues to consider. If one wants to take action to forcibly detain a person who is suspected of having a disabling mental illness (assume for the moment that such a diagnosis had been made), this would presumably be done at the local level. The FBI cannot take action in mental illness cases – nor would we want the FBI to do so.
+Richard Perez Bello many state and local governments have banned Throwing Stars, Butterfly Knives, nun-chucks and (most notoriously) NYC’s ban on “gravity blades”.
So, yes they can and have, even with little or no deaths caused by those items.
The whole “assault rifle” thing is a bit of a misnomer really. If items are to be targeted for banning, then you need to be able to easily define them as a category.
Semi-automatics
Removable magazines
Capacity of no more then 6 rounds
That would get rid of most guns out there.
+Stan Pedzick that would only get rid of large magazines.
If your neighbors want to rob or kill you, something needed to happen a long time ago that would make “self defense weapons” completely unnecessary.
+Stan Pedzick Though I think you could probably establish that shooters tend to go for the cool-deadly-nasty-military-looking weapons; things that look like traditional hunting rifles, even if they are just as deadly functionally, don't seem to meet the emotional pew-pew factor.
Jim Wright touches on these topics here: https://www.facebook.com/Stonekettle/posts/1604681649567232
+Dave Hill yes, I was yelling at the lying fighting Quaker on NPR this morning for going on and on about the FBI and how they failed. >rolls eyes<
It’s as if our useless press critters want thought crimes and to live in a Dick dystopian world where the FBI will swoop in to arrest folks before they can commit a crime, or haul anyone off that those living in the upper 2% deem as a danger to them.
+Stan Pedzick "I want those OTHER people to be more closely monitored!"
+Stan Pedzick a mentally sick deranged individual can kill someone with a hammer government can not ban all hammers, the mental stability of an individual should be in question here and not a hammer the hammer did not choose to kill someone the mentally unstable individual chose this
+Richard Perez Bello Two distinct differences:
1. Yes, any object in the hand of a violently ill person can be used to harm or kill. That said, a gun is far more efficient in killing, esp. on a mass basis. That's why armies use guns, not hammers. Yeesh.
Or, put another way, when was the last tragic school hammer massacre you heard of?
2. Oh, and hammers (and cars, and knives, and everything else people who trot out this tired counter-argument use) have significant valuable uses beyond killing people we don't like. Guns, for 95% of the population, do not.
+Dave Hill you seem to be too ignorant about the facts as you deny the very mental state of an individual, no matter the size of a gun can all kill more people at a time and is effective even a bomb will kill more people at a time, this is the mentality of the military as they are trained to become murderers in the name of the military institutions.
The idea of confiscation of military firearms is to unarm the citizens of their right to bear arms against tyrannical government, and America is no longer country it's a corporation each state is a corporation and those who are in high positions of power and authority over the human race want to unarm law abiding citizens because of a mentally sick deranged nut, and also to protect one's self against a tyrannical corrupt government and this is what America has become.
America is not your country it's a corporation mainly owned by Europeans and they want to disarm you so no one can fight back.
As all who survive the onslaught of genocide against all American citizens will be nothing but slaves.
All school shootings are CIA FBI operatives they are the real terrorists it's your secret shadow bilderburg government NSA CIA FBI that are the terrorists so they can take yours guns.
The corrupt fascist militarized police state corporation dictatorship of America
This is what America is……
+Richard Perez Bello Ah. Nutter. Got it. Aloha.