Tenn. AG: Person with PTSD can obtain handgun

[davidnc76]

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- 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."



http://www.wztv.com/template/inews_wire/wires.regional.tn/325411be-www.fox17.com.shtml

[Bluebear]

1. So you can have PTSD, just as long as you haven't been treated for it too much!

:crazy:

[XemaSab]

19. Most people with PTSD have not been hospitalized

It's a lot more common out there than you would think, and most of the sufferers are not the sketched-out veterans waiting for World War Three.

Know anyone who saw the Towers collapse? Know anyone molested as a kid? Know anyone who was in NOLA during Katrina?

You quite possibly know someone living with PTSD.

[zanne]

2. Holy crap!

Just when you think it can't get any more irresponsible, it does. NO excuse for this. None.

[hogwyld]

6. I'm sure, as are you

that the gungeon dwellers will defend this to the last.

[XemaSab]

18. Do you know anyone with PTSD?

Unless the person is psychotic or paranoid, I don't see why people with managable mental illnesses shouldn't have the same constitutional rights as everyone else. :shrug:

[Truth4Justice]

43. America: land of freedom...to die by gunfire. "Guns good, natonal healthcare bad"....

this country has a real problem when guns are allowed to be bought and owned by people with a major psychiatric disorder.

[applegrove]

3. I give it 5 minutes before the gungeon NRA types show up and fight

for the rights of all people - no matter how they have been diagnosed - to own guns. Disgusting.

[hogwyld]

5. You are absolutely right

:popcorn: The gungeon will arrive in 5...4...3...2...

[zanne]

27. And here it is!

Justifying their way out of fanatical support of guns since 2002!

[aikoaiko]

7. If he is a danger then there is a mechanism for dealing with him.

Sorry, but in this country we have a thing called due process.

[benEzra]

11. Yes, how DARE anyone stand up for due process for people NOT considered dangerous.

I am completely OK with denial of gun ownership for those who have been adjudicated mentally incompetent. But a simple diagnosis of PTSD, with NO determination that the person is a danger to anyone? No, that would not be justified, IMO.

[applegrove]

17. I agree that a simple diagnosis of PTSD or any other serious mental

diagnosis doesn't mean someone is dangerous. But there need to be limits to who gets a gun. Somehow there has to be a limit to who gets a gun.

[cobalt1999]

20. So you agree with the AG then.

That's all he's saying.

[XemaSab]

21. And who decides who isn't allowed constitutional rights?

What diagnoses should preclude people from being allowed constitutional rights?

Depressed people? Narcissists? People with ADHD? People with generalized anxiety disorder? Manic depressives? Borderlines? Obsessive compulsives? People with social phobias? Alcoholics?

A few years ago being gay was considered a mental illness; maybe tomorrow the BFEE will classify all liberals as mentally ill.

So where do you want to draw the line?

[applegrove]

24. I don't know where you draw the line. But you have to draw it somewhere.

[benEzra]

30. Right where it was drawn by the Gun Control Act of 1968.

Any adjudication of mental incompetence bars you (probably for life) from so much as touching a gun. So does any conviction for any crime punishable by 1 year or more of jail or probation.

[slackmaster]

32. It's already drawn very clearly

:argh:

[Truth4Justice]

44. People with mental illness, substance abuse including cops who need to be drug tested for steriods.

in other words people who can't deal with life don't need a gun to deal out death.

[madinmaryland]

26. Many of the reich-wing hate mongers already classify liberals

as mentally ill. So I would assume the BFEE does also.

:shrug:

[cliffordu]

37. Narcissists. Can't trust them to do anything but preen.

They just cannot be trusted with weapons.

[benEzra]

28. There already are. Anyone who is adjudicated mentally competent

who is subject to a restraining order against a family member, or who has EVER been convicted of ANY crime punishable by a year or more in jail (including any felony) is barred from so much as touching a gun.

I'm OK with that. I am NOT OK with revoking the right to own a gun from anyone who has ever suffered from simple PTSD, depression, Aspergers, or whatever.

[slackmaster]

31. Earth to applegrove

We HAVE limits on who can own guns.

Somehow there has to be a limit to who gets a gun.

Gun Control Act of 1968. Read up on it some time. Here's a link to the part of the United States Code that includes the current federal restrictions:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00000922----000-.html

[Truth4Justice]

12. I thought people with mental illness couldnt buy a gun but they get permits too? Crazy USA laws !!

[cliffordu]

14. Depends on the mental illness and the status of the individual. Here in Wa.

you can get one legally if you haven't been in the hospital for the last five years.

Permit to carry has slightly different rules.

As an aside:

I have a pistol. I have only needed it once, in my home, and I did not use it. I just pointed it at the perpetrators face.

Without the gun, my wife and I would probably be dead. A baseball bat would not have worked it that situation.

[slackmaster]

34. People who have been adjudicated as mentally incompent cannot own guns

Most "people with mental illness" are not a threat to themselves or anyone else, and they do have rights.

[slackmaster]

29. Don't hold your breath

Not gonna happen.

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. ...or judicially determined...

So a doctor who is treating him can say he is a danger, but unless he is dragged to court so a judge can agree, he can't be restricted.

The guy who is prone to flashes of white-hot rage, but is not mentally incompetent, can't be restricted.

[Truth4Justice]

15. Thats what bother me. These soldiers are armed and if they "go mad" lots of people are going to die.

[XemaSab]

22. Most people with PTSD are quiet, gentle, otherwise normal people

Most of them aren't going to "go mad."

[cliffordu]

38. Fuck. That's the most ignorant thing I've read here, and that's saying something.

Unless, of course, you forgot the sarcasm thingy.

[Truth4Justice]

39. Ya gotta like how he dumps all PTSD patients in the same group. What nonsence!

[cliffordu]

41. Yep. I had PTSD BEFORE I went to Vietnam.......It wasn't a known thingat that point...

I love being on the group W bench......

[noamnety]

8. I can see some justification for this.

For women, a very common cause of PTSD is rape. The vast majority of the rapists are not locked up and know where the victim lives - and if the victim has reported it, they have a motive for revenge.

I can understand a woman wanting to carry a gun for self-defense in those circumstances, especially if the rapist has a history of stalking her.

I don't see why being a rape victim - and having trauma associated with that - should give you less rights to defend yourself. If I had a violent stalker with a history of assaults on me, I'd consider carrying a weapon.

[XemaSab]

23. Amen, sister.

:thumbsup:

[cobalt1999]

9. Sounds fair.

If someone hasn't committed a crime, hasn't been judged mentally defective, hasn't been hospitalized, hasn't been determined to be a risk to himself or others, then why should their rights be taken away from them?

[benEzra]

10. Which is as it should be. PTSD is not an automatically disqualifying condition, nor should it be.

PTSD is a spectrum. Any very traumatic experience can cause PTSD, and the shallow end of the spectrum is not generally considered dangerous.

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

FWIW, in 2003, my 4-year-old son almost died on the table during open-heart surgery in early 2003, 1500 miles from home; after the surgery, he was in ICU so long due to complications that he became morphine dependent and had to go through cold-turkey morphine withdrawal to get off the vent; he developed pneumonia and a collapsed lung lobe in recovery; had a positive staph aureus test resulting in grueling courses of IV antibiotics, which had us getting up in the middle of the night to take him to the treatment room and hold him down for half an hour at a time while they tried to get yet another IV in his badly scarred veins; me sleeping on the cold tile bathroom floor (technically only 1 parent was allowed to stay in our son's room, so it was either surreptitiously sleep in the room's bathroom or sleep on the street); and then after I eventually had to leave to go back to work (savings run dry, bills overdue), my wife had to be hospitalized herself due to Norwalk virus and extreme dehydration and fatigue. Tough stuff (and of course our son was ten times as traumatized as we were, because it was all being done to him).

My wife and I were traumatized, emotionally hollowed out, and of course it caused serious problems in our marriage (though we did eventually work through most of it). Neither of us was diagnosed with PTSD, but my wife probably could have been, had she sought therapy; of the two of us, her experience was far more traumatizing, as she had to go it alone for nearly a month, got so worn down she had to be hospitalized herself, and she was quite debilitated for months after they came home. But to suggest that her gun license should have been taken away after she got home had she sought therapy, because she was dealing with the consequences of what happened? Come ON. You can't just revoke people's rights because Bad Things happen to them or their families, or because because they seek professional advice to help them deal withi it productively.

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.

[Truth4Justice]

42. It should be if the doctor thinks it is. Once the subject is free of PTSD the right to own a gun can

be restored.

[cliffordu]

13. Threads like these remind me that less is known about mental illness than about

what creates gun violence.

Jesus.

[EFerrari]

16. People that have PTSD are not cartoons and they are not all

at the same level of functionality. Careful. :)

[NJmaverick]

25. Gun rights and mental disease/disorders is a challenging

issue, that doesn't have that many clear cut answers. For example the Virginia Tech shooting shows that there is a real danger of allowing some people with mental illness access to fire arms. On the other hand there as XemaSab and others have pointed out, there are many issues and disorders that are neither crippling or cause a person to be a threat. So I guess the real question is who or how should it be decided who's illness should prevent them from owning a fire arm and who's shouldn't. To complicate this question you also have to be mindful that certain rules or laws could then act to discourge those that need help, from seeking it out (for fear of losing their rights).

[BlooInBloo]

35. Pfft. On DU, *EVERYTHING* has easy clear-cut answers!

[noamnety]

36. I had the same concern.

"To complicate this question you also have to be mindful that certain rules or laws could then act to discourge those that need help, from seeking it out (for fear of losing their rights)."

Going back to my scenario of a rapist/stalker, a woman should not have to chose between getting counseling and protecting herself. Restraining orders are not effective. Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach was proof of that (as if it wasn't already well known).

[DU GrovelBot]

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[easttexaslefty]

40. I have PTSD

I'm not a danger to anyone but myself. My husband has guns, they are locked up and have always been.