Tenn. AG: Person with PTSD can obtain handgun

[flashl]

By The Associated Press • August 14, 2008

Tennessee's attorney general says a person who has been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can obtain a handgun carry permit.

Attorney General Robert Cooper said in an opinion issued on Thursday that a person diagnosed with PTSD can get a permit "as long as that person has not been adjudicated as mentally defective, been committed or hospitalized, or been judicially determined to pose a substantial risk of harm because of PTSD."
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Legislation that would give people voluntarily hospitalized in mental institutions the right to obtain handgun permits after seven years was among a number of gun bills that failed last session.

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[fascisthunter]

2. Yay for the NRA and their gun Manufacturing Friends

all gun pushers.... just clap your hands, just clap your hands

[tburnsten]

3. Awfully poor on personal rights aren't you "fascist" "hunter"?

Pretty odd to me that you support stripping civil rights from a class of people who have not been deemed a hazard to anyone's safety just because they have the PTSD all over the teevee. Good job, you sound like a great candidate for a homeland insecurity intelligence guy.

[one-eyed fat man]

7. anti-veteran bias

There has been a push by Carolyn McCarthyand other gun-control advocates to force military and VA medical records into NICS. The unstated goal seems to be that any combat veteran who ever was evaluated for PTSD should prohibited from ever owning firearms.

I am not sure where that came from but the notion struck me as stereotyping soldiers as "government trained killing machines" and every treats combat veterans like ticking time bombs.

That attitude reminds me a lot of something else I have read:

http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/tommy.html

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

8. Stripping rights from veterans now.

You may need to evaluate what you believe.

David

[fascisthunter]

9. when is someone's life as important as your right to own a gun?

You advocate doing nothing about this, even though innocents are harmed everyday. It's one thing to stick up for your rights and to find a middle ground where rights are protected and people's lives are as well. But doing nothing at all is plain sick...

Your so called right to own a gun was meant to protect life YOUR OWN SELF_CENTERED LIFE, not just take away someone else's life. What you advocate for is a right to own a gun irregardless of the loss of innocent human life. Everything else in society is regulated.... but your guns are not to be???? That's some extremist shit I will never go along with. Guns are not tools, they are instruments designed and used to kill, nor are they necessary for a civilian....

So don't give me this crap that owning a gun is somehow as beneficial to society or a democracy as your Freedoms of Speech, or any other right...

We do not live in the 1700's anymore.... get over it.

That hands off approach is costing lives... so what's your solution....? when is someone's life as important as your right to own a gun? Instead of advocating solutions you just want nothing to be done, so lives are lost. I call BS to your "rights" rhetoric, since you could give two shits about folks right to life. If you cared, you'd seek a middle ground....

[tburnsten]

10. what persons life?

You aren't advocating preventing dangerous people from owning firearms, you are advocating ANYONE who has been evaluated for PTSD to be banned from owning guns.


And this isn't a "hands-off" approach, the ATF is very activist in its interpretation of among other things the definition of "machine gun". You'd think it would be pretty simple yet they have classified a shoestring as an illegal machine gun before. No joke, people spend years in prison and lose everything they own over it, people who weren't harming anyone, just spending some time at the range. They have declared a broken gun at the end of it's service life a machine gun as well. Same results.

[jeepnstein]

11. Your Right...

to free speech isn't important to me. Does that mean I can choose to ignore that part of the Constitution? How about tossing the whole Bill of Rights since the conditions that prompted their writing no longer exist? Or should we just toss those Rights you find unimportant?

It's a crying shame that criminals live amongst us. Maybe we should ban criminals?

J.

[SteveM]

13. You tell folks to "get over it." Yet, you are here...

You really need to learn something instead of reacting in a hostile manner. There are already many gun laws in this country. You need to admit that instead of popping off with "Everything else in society is regulated... but your guns are not to be????" It ain't true and you know it.

You say: "guns are not tools, they are instruments designed and used to kill, nor are they necessary for a civilian..." Guns remain tools and your proclamation otherwise means nothing. And proclaiming guns are not necessary for a civilian means you have much, much more in mind than some fanciful middle ground.

You go on and on about solutions, yet you offer NONE which can be shown to reduce problems of "costing lives."

You cannot hustle your way out of your own conundrum by saying the Second Amendment isn't "beneficial to society" as the other rights. That's just another proclamation.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

14. Innocent people are harmed every day by non dangerous veterans with a past diagnoses of PTSD?

Guns are heavily restricted so what do you mean by doing nothing? What hands off approach? The only people at risk from my firearms are criminals. If you honestly believe that armed police don't provide an overall benefit to society then you are a fool. As to my solution, mandatory 10 year sentences for any felon found in possession of a firearm, any crime committed with a firearm and mandating that the sentence be served consecutively after the original sentence is served. Secondly, open the NICS to private citizens for the purpose of performing background checks on private sales and aggressive prosecution of straw purchasers. Hope that helps.

David

[slackmaster]

15. False dilemma

You lose.

[gorfle]

17. Not the 1700s anymore.

Everything else in society is regulated.... but your guns are not to be???? That's some extremist shit I will never go along with. Guns are not tools, they are instruments designed and used to kill, nor are they necessary for a civilian....

First of all, firearms are regulated.

Second of all, firearms are most definitely necessary for civilians to own. As I've posted many times here, the intent of the founders is quite clear. The idea was to keep military power in the hands of The People (civilians) so that they could not be oppressed by a tyrannical federal government.


So don't give me this crap that owning a gun is somehow as beneficial to society or a democracy as your Freedoms of Speech, or any other right...

Our founders did not share your optimism. They feared that our rights, such as freedom of speech, could be oppressed, and so armed the people as a final recourse against such oppression and tyranny.

We do not live in the 1700's anymore.... get over it.

No, we do not live in the 1700's anymore. This does not mean that the foresight of our founders is somehow invalid. I would no more "get over" the right to keep and bear arms as insurance against tyranny than I would get over the right to free speech or the right against unreasonable search and seizure. These ideals were applicable in the 1700's and still are today.

when is someone's life as important as your right to own a gun?

Quite simply, never. We should never give up essential liberties while seeking temporary safety.

[virginia mountainman]

19. Hands off?? 20,000 American gun laws???

Surly you jest...

[fascisthunter]

20. "person who has been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder "

looks like we need one more.

[tburnsten]

22. Look at that shining anti-veteran attitude

bursting through in all its wretched, mean-spirited, ungrateful glory. If you have an issue with a war, why don't you at least attempt to properly lay the blame for it and peg it on the civilian leadership who in nearly every single conflict are the ones who initiated the problem.

[virginia mountainman]

25. BULLSHIT....

You do realize that their are many different levels of impairment, ONLY the worst cases should trigger someones civil rights, being put on hold, and in those cases, it should take a judge to do it, with a clear way to get those rights back.

A law, like you propose, and a certain way, to keep the people that need the help the most, to stay the hell away.


I cannot imagine, taking away rights, from those that protect ours....UNBELIVABLE.

[fascisthunter]

26. Puhleeese... Taking Away Your Rights to Own a Gun

Tell me.... what's so earth shattering that the idea of regulating gun ownership so that unstable folks are disallowed from owning one makes you feel it is soooo "unbelievable"? Please... do tell...

Also, I understand there are different levels of impairment and didn't mean to insinuate any and all PTSD victims should be prohibited from buying or owning a gun.

[slackmaster]

29. Maybe we should stop "unstable folks" from voting, or having jury trials

:eyes:

[SteveM]

30. So you agree with the Tennessee AG after all. Why all the spittle?

"Also, I understand there are different levels of impairment and didn't mean to insinuate any and all PTSD victims should be prohibited from buying or owning a gun."

Mighty big come down after all the sound 'n' fury. Would you determine "impairment" by judicial due process?

[AtheistCrusader]

32. That's exactly what you did.

People who are adjudicated with due process, to be in so few words found 'mentally defective', are currently not allowed to purchase firearms.

No one is asking for that rule to be relaxed. To have PTSD is not the same as being 'mentally defective'. The rules vary somewhat from state to state, the general seems to be those involuntarily institutionalized for 24 hours or more. Going to a psychologist, and being diagnosed with and receiving treatment for PTSD is not the same as being found to be a danger to yourself or others, and being institutionalized without your consent.

Gun ownership IS regulated. 'Unstable Folks' are generally not allowed to purchase firearms. There might be some cleanup to do in a few states that do not report involuntary institutionalization to NICS or other background check systems, but beyond that, there isn't a lot left to do in this regard. You are railing about a non-issue. This is already done. It is already regulated. Sleep soundly, state and federal legislators have taken care of this issue, for the most part.

[one-eyed fat man]

21. .............like these guys?

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/08/fedex_employee_charged_with_st.html

The nerve of these guys!! Selling stolen guns to gang bangers without a back ground check.

We should make stealing against the law.

[fascisthunter]

27. heh???? Have another one

[one-eyed fat man]

12. things sure have changed...........

During WW2 the "elite" Ivy League schools gave us heroes. Now, those same schools bar military recruiters. Once virtually every able-bodied man had spent some time in military service. Our soldiers are held up to ridicule as being too dumb to stay in school to avoid Iraq.

Almost thirty years on active duty, service in two wars, to have going to the VA qualify me to be on some "wacko-nutjob watch list" is awfully hard to not take take offence.

When I reflect on the freedoms we have lost in the past 60 years I am almost glad I won't see how bad my grandkids are going to have it.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ManiacJoe]

5. If you don't like the current standard, work to change it.

From where I stand, the current standard is reasonable.

[jeepnstein]

16. This is a very good thing.

I have a close friend who is on his fourth, and hopefully final, trip to Iraq. He's very honest in his assessment that anyone who comes back from that place, having served in combat, and doesn't get counseling for PTSD is nuts. Some of the stories he shared with me were quite interesting. He shows some of the signs himself and I'm sure he'll seek treatment as soon as he's out of the Army. Anything that raises a stigma about seeking help for a very natural reaction to a very unnatural experience should be discouraged. It's a career killer to seek treatment in the military. It shouldn't be viewed that way once a soldier has returned to the country he served.

[gorfle]

18. Sounds ok to me.

It looks to me like the wrong part was highlighted.

"Attorney General Robert Cooper said in an opinion issued on Thursday that a person diagnosed with PTSD can get a permit "as long as that person has not been adjudicated as mentally defective, been committed or hospitalized, or been judicially determined to pose a substantial risk of harm because of PTSD.""

So it sounds to me like just having been diagnosed with PTSD is insufficient to lose your second amendment rights. Instead, you have to have been judicially determined to pose a substantial risk of harm because of PTSD.

I think this is fair.

The idea is still the same as it ever was - deny ownership rights to people too unstable to own firearms.

[quidam56]

23. TN Seems to have very relaxed laws on acceptable health care too.

I have PTSD and already own three guns, if people want guns they are going to get them no matter what the law says.

www.caringbridge.org/visit/timmullins

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

24. In what ways are their laws relaxed on health care.

Sorry I just don't understand the statement.

David

[benEzra]

28. OMG! Someone NOT considered dangerous is (gasp) allowed to own a GUN!!! Oh noes!!111

:sarcasm:

Thing is, anyone who is mentally defective, who has been committed, or has been determined to pose a substantial risk of harm, CAN be denied (and have their right to own a gun revoked, to boot). But anyone who isn't dangerous has the benefit of due process, as it should be, IMO.

PTSD is a spectrum, and the vast majority of people with PTSD are NOT a danger to anyone. No matter how some of the Righteous Ones around here might wish to believe otherwise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-traumatic_stress_disorder

[DU GrovelBot]

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