Steps to keep mentally ill from buying guns

[MikePapa1]

<header> Steps to keep mentally ill from buying guns

By Steven Mangine

Posted: 12:00am on Feb 13, 2011; Modified: 1:54am on Feb 13, 2011

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For an alienated and unbalanced young college student, chronic misery is fast spiraling into violent desperation.

In the classroom, he laughs with no cause, stares, expounds bizarre numerological theories. He proclaims his college itself unconstitutional. A professor worries aloud that the young man could shoot up the classroom. When the institution finally dismisses him, he becomes still more agitated, sleepless, paranoid. He enters a Sportsman's Warehouse store and picks out a Glock 19 semi-automatic pistol.

The clerk calls in the required background check — usually cleared while the customer waits — and is told that this customer cannot buy a firearm. Officials at his college had petitioned a local judge to suspend his ability to buy a weapon, and the suspension was entered immediately into the federal database established by the Brady Bill.

A Jan. 8 "Congress on Your Corner" meeting in Tucson, Ariz., proceeds without incident.

Alas, the account above is fictional. No such procedure for preventing a mentally ill and dangerous person from buying a firearm actually exists.

On Nov. 30 of last year, Jared Loughner did purchase the pistol he used to kill six people and injure 14 others five weeks later. Three years before, Seung Hui Cho, despite a history of mandated mental health treatment, bought the Glock semiautomatic pistol that cut down 32 people at Virginia Tech University.

Despite multiple police contacts and obvious signs of mental illness, both Loughner and Cho bought their weapons legally. Clearly we need a procedure for preventing such individuals from buying firearms — the sooner, the better.

Many have blamed the Tucson disaster on a failure of the mental health system. After all, Loughner showed signs of mental disturbance and aggression so obvious and public one classmate always sat near an exit, poised to flee on the grisly day she knew was coming. Surely, the mental health system should have intervened, compelling treatment with or without his consent.

Unfortunately, in a free society, managing potentially violent mentally ill persons poses daunting legal and ethical dilemmas.

Some existing laws do attempt to balance the demands of public safety with the rights of mentally ill citizens. For example, a therapist must break confidentiality and inform the police if a client makes a direct threat against another person. Likewise, any citizen can petition a judge to authorize the involuntary hospitalization of a mentally ill person who presents a danger to self or others.

It is doubtful, however, that either of these legal options could have prevented Virginia Tech or Tucson.

Since neither Cho nor Loughner was in treatment just before the shootings, no therapist had any information to disclose. Pima Community College could have petitioned for Loughner to be hospitalized against his will. But legal standards for involuntary hospitalization require not only bizarre behavior or verbal aggression, but a clear threat of harm to self or others. It is unlikely either Cho or Loughner would have met that strict legal standard before their crimes.

The following relatively simple, twofold legal mechanism might have prevented both tragedies and a significant number of suicides, since research shows many firearm suicides are completed with newly purchased weapons:

■ Any citizen could petition a judge to suspend an apparently aggressive or suicidal person's right to buy a firearm. The potentially dangerous person would not have to be in treatment to be subject to this suspension.

■ Any licensed health care professional with reason to believe a patient posed a danger to self or others could enter an order to block firearm purchases directly into the federal database.

In either case, the affected person would have the right to challenge the suspension, via either a full psychological examination or a legal hearing.

This public safety measure seems as commonsensical as allowing a physician or a judge to suspend the license of a driver impaired by uncontrolled epilepsy or Alzheimer's disease. If you agree, spread the idea around.

It would certainly not prevent every potential tragedy, but it could buy precious time in many situations.

For some husband, wife, parent or friend, that could make the difference between a heart-rending loss and a near miss.

About the author Steven Mangine is a clinical psychologist practicing in Lexington and an adjunct faculty member in the University of Kentucky's department of psychology.

Read more: Steps to keep mentally ill from buying guns | Op-Ed | Kentucky.com

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[Guest 6.8 AR]

■ Any citizen could petition a judge to suspend an apparently aggressive or suicidal person's right to buy a firearm. The potentially dangerous person would not have to be in treatment to be subject to this suspension.

I distrust any time a citizen can just petition a judge, or other official and cause an injury to

another, without proof. You can already rat out almost anyone for tax evasion without having proof.

That is enough for me to consider temporarily going insane and killing another, by itself. This stuff is

like something out of a Ray Bradbury book.

We will never get all the loons off the street and someone else will die, eventually. As tragic as this

stuff is, it won't be completely eliminated.

Isn't a psychologist or psychiatrist supposed to intervene in these cases if they know of something like

this may happen?

Edited February 14, 2011 by 6.8 AR

[MikePapa1]

No matter how well intentioned Dr. Mangine's suggestions, they are fraught with disaster. The one you pointed out causes me less concerned than the other one. No person should be debarred from their Constitutional right to keep and bear arms absent a well set path of due process. In a citizen's petition, evidence of some sort would have to be presented before any reasonable judge would enter such an order . His suggestion of the immediate suspension based upon a mental health provider's say so alone, though is truly frightening. It allows no due process, no mechanism to appeal or any of the attributes that the rule of law requires. I posted this because I found it interesting, but I couldn't disagree more with Dr. Mangine's proposals.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

I suspected we would share that opinion. The Dr's intentions would be paving the road to Hell.

I was bringing out a symptom of the other illness in our society. This idea of ratting out others.

governments like to empower the citizenry with foolish methods.

[shortround]

Surely you don't think there are any health professional out there who would abuse this right, or, heaven forbid, not be fully qualified to make such a judgement?

[vontar]

I distrust any time a citizen can just petition a judge, or other official and cause an injury to

another, without proof

Agreed.

Surely you don't think there are any health professional out there who would abuse this right, or, heaven forbid, not be fully qualified to make such a judgement?

Day one in College, my 101 Intro to Psychology class, I remember one of the first things my professor said. He was a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist and he could have anyone of us commented indefinitely, (poor Jamie wonder if he ever got out).

[Guest ab28]

Agreed.

Day one in College, my 101 Intro to Psychology class, I remember one of the first things my professor said. He was a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist and he could have anyone of us commented indefinitely, (poor Jamie wonder if he ever got out).

Pretty much everyone is mentally ill if you try hard enough to find a reason.

Wanna cut back on school shootings? Allow carry permit holders to carry on campus, or at least veterans. There are over 1000 veterans at MTSU, many of us having done tours in Iraq or Afghanistan. If no one else, at least begin by letting us carry on campus. I probably have more firearms experience and training than many of the police on our campus. Not knocking cops, they do a great job, but they can't protect every one of the 25,000 students 24/7.

That brings up another point. All the shootings you have heard about like that were from untrained people. Imagine what would happen if an ex Navy SEAL or someone went on a shooting spree.

[RobertNashville]

Truly mentally ill people buying firearms who are buying them with the intent of committing murder IS a problem.

Unfortunately, I see no easy solution to the problem that doesn't infringe on the rights of those who aren't the problem. The only answer I see that makes sense and doesn't violate anyone's rights is for law-abiding citizens to carry arms for their own protection and the protection of others so that these murderous events can be stopped as quickly and with as few innocent casualties as possible.

It's regrettable that a truly mentally ill person should have to be killed - that we can't find a better way; but much more regrettable is the death of many totally innocent people.

Edited March 3, 2011 by RobertNashville

[Guest ab28]

Not to mention anyone who is halfway trained could kill quite a few people with a knife in a large crowd.

[Guest pfries]

If in either of those incidents they purchased the guns with the intent to perform the actions that followed, do you really believe that having any law in place would have stopped them? They simply would have circumvented the law as the other criminals do and got it from a private seller or via the “black market”.

[Bigiron]

How can we get protection from all the criminals in congress? Elections haven't been very successful.

[Jonnin]

What steps can we take to keep anti-gun shrinks from saying we are all insane and unfit? Thats where this will lead, eventually. I have been around a number of mentally ill folks, and only one of them is a danger really, the rest are just "eccentric". That one guy will never get one (its pretty well documented that he is a risk now) but there is a need for improvement here. I cannot for the life of me think of a way to limit the access to guns that is fair to everyone while effective against this sort of problem. Its really impossible to say that somone has snapped; many times the person who has snapped is calm and normalish, at the most seeming distracted, right up to the time when the violence starts.

There is no good answer to this issue in most cases. In a few, where friends, family, and associates can all see that there is a problem and could report it, something can be done, but in most cases, the association causes the person to hesitate to make the report, and nothing prevents the person from getting whatever they want.

Its not worth it to create more laws for the tiny handful that would be stopped. Mostly, what is needed is education of the society at large to encourage reporting of people who are clearly a danger, before it is too late. Similar programs have mostly failed though, to stop drug abuse, domestic violence, and other things, education just has not really stopped the problem. As I said, I am at a loss for anything effective that could be done that does not wrong normal gun owners.... I think this might be a situation where nothing useful can be done and government should do nothing at all.

[tnhawk]

How can we get protection from all the criminals in congress? Elections haven't been very successful.

The mentally ill in congress are doing more damage than those on the streets.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Plus, it's getting very convenient to call just about anything a "mental disorder" that would

disqualify a huge population from owning a firearm, just for the sake of gun control. Stuff

like this is what Obamacare is all about.

All the mental disqualification argument does is take the discussion away from the real meaning

of the liberal progressive statists desires. They want total and complete control. when you take

the guns from society, you're almost there. Hitler did this. That didn't go well. this is ultimately

about absolute power. But I'm sure some just dismiss that as tinhat garbage.

[E4 No More]

Well here's an issue for the strict 2A crowd: Where does it say "except for the mentally ill" in the 2A??

[Jonnin]

Well here's an issue for the strict 2A crowd: Where does it say "except for the mentally ill" in the 2A??

The same place it says felons cannot have em. The same place it says that "arms" does not equal bazookas or machine guns. The same place that it says that folks in jail cannot have them. Word for word, 'the people' are the same 'the people' in the other similar paragraphs (for example: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers...). "the people" is us, its every citizen.

Probably, there was no need for exceptions because the folks that need to be excepted would have been hung from the nearest tree in short order. Since we don't do that anymore, a few limitations are in order for those sorts of folks (the extremely criminal violent, sane or not, should probably not be handed a bazooka...).

[Moped]

If we truly had a mental heath system in this country, that could actually make a report on someone, I'd be for a background check for this, but we don't even recognize mental issues in this country unless it has something to do with gun control or suppressing someone's ability to do something.

[Guest TnValleyBulletman]

Last year at an ATF seminar for FFL's, this subject was brought up. There are only 30 or so mentally ill people in Tn. in the data base. The problem is that mental health records in Tn. are not released due to privacy issues.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Good question. All those exceptions need to be rethought. I'm strict on the Bill of Rights, and it seems,

at every turn, there is an exception to each and every one of them. The Patriot Act needs to go because

of this. There are so many infringements on them all it is ridiculous.

Then, there are also those who just bend over and accept them thinking "well, nothing wrong with that".

Bitch about something long enough and someone will make it illegal.

[eapking]

The mentally ill in congress are doing more damage than those on the streets.

and there's an old saying: "you can't argue with a sick mind."

[eapking]

The same place it says felons cannot have em. The same place it says that "arms" does not equal bazookas or machine guns. The same place that it says that folks in jail cannot have them. Word for word, 'the people' are the same 'the people' in the other similar paragraphs (for example: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers...). "the people" is us, its every citizen.

Probably, there was no need for exceptions because the folks that need to be excepted would have been hung from the nearest tree in short order. Since we don't do that anymore, a few limitations are in order for those sorts of folks (the extremely criminal violent, sane or not, should probably not be handed a bazooka...).

And all that's because the Founders were probably going through these thoughts:

1. How can anyone conceive of not being able to protect one's self and family from harm, by whatever implement necessary.

2. When a "militia" becomes necessary (and they didn't mean the National Guard)...it's "All hands on deck. Bring what ya got". Gonna be needing people (We the People).

Jonnin is right. The criminals and folks not qualified would have been dealt with beforehand, due to prior transgressions. Unlike now with the revolving door of courts, liberal judges and parole boards.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

The same place it says felons cannot have em. The same place it says that "arms" does not equal bazookas or machine guns. The same place that it says that folks in jail cannot have them. Word for word, 'the people' are the same 'the people' in the other similar paragraphs (for example: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers...). "the people" is us, its every citizen.

Probably, there was no need for exceptions because the folks that need to be excepted would have been hung from the nearest tree in short order. Since we don't do that anymore, a few limitations are in order for those sorts of folks (the extremely criminal violent, sane or not, should probably not be handed a bazooka...).

And that same place is the wrong place. There is no justice when you infringe it in the process.