After Tucson: Why Are the Mentally Ill Still Bearing Arms?

[onehandle]

When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the handgun ban in the nation's capital in 2008, Representative Gabrielle Giffords applauded the ruling, calling gun ownership "an Arizona tradition." That she had co-signed a congressional amicus brief against the ban came as no surprise: she has always been pro-gun, and she represents a state with a history of proud gun ownership and lax gun laws.

So there is at least a touch of irony to the fact that her name is being invoked, following her attempted assassination on Saturday, in calls for tighter gun control. Paul Helmke, head of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, offered prayers for Giffords and decried "easy access to high-powered guns." New York Representative Carolyn McCarthy called the shooting "an illustration of why we must all work together to fight gun violence in America and keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of the wrong people."

The real question in Tucson, though, is why the alleged shooter, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, was allowed to buy the murder weapon in the first place. Beyond the clearly delusional nature of online videos ascribed to him, Loughner was suspended last year from Pima Community College apparently because of mental problems. According to the college, he was told he could return only if he obtained "a mental health clearance indicating, in the opinion of a mental health professional, his presence at the College does not present a danger to himself or others." The Army also denied Loughner's application for unspecified reasons. It's unclear what other organizations or agencies might have been aware of Loughner's dangerous mental state. Still, he passed a background check, and late last year legally bought the 9-mm Glock 19 semiautomatic handgun allegedly used in the shootings.

As far back as the Gun Control Act of 1968, there have been federal laws against selling weapons to mentally ill individuals. But the Virginia Tech tragedy in 2007, in which the shooter Cho Seung-Hui was able to pass two federal gun background checks even after a state court ruled that he was dangerously mentally ill, highlighted the need for better record-keeping and interagency communication to enforce those laws. (More than 30 people died in the incident.) Saying that unstable individuals are disqualified from buying firearms is meaningless if the national background-check system, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), has no record of their illness. That's why the Brady organization was proud to announce on Friday, just a day before the Tucson shootings, that the number of records of mental illness in the NICS database had more than doubled since Virginia Tech, to more than 1 million records.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/08599204144800

[Kingofalldems]

1. Here they come

:popcorn:

[cali]

2. he hadn't been adjudicated mentally ill

[Statistical]

3. Simple. NICS can only block people who are mentally adjudicated.

It requires a legal process to infringe upon a persons Constitutional rights.
Felons can have their rights infringed because they are convicted in a court of law (due process).
Police can infringe upon your right to privacy because they obtain a warrant (due process).

To block someone access for mental health reasons requires the rule of law and due process.

Maybe we need better mental health system, maybe we need to make it easier for people to report dangerous individuals. Maybe we need a aystem where more potentially disturbed people can be mentally adjudicated.

However the belief that we will ever strip Constitutional rights without due process is a pipe dream and anti-American.

The NICS will block anyone deemed a prohibited person. Its accuracy rate is extremely high (and usually failures are false positives). Rather than useless gun control we need a better system to get more dangerous persons into the blocked list however it has to be done with due processes.

[no_hypocrisy]

4. Gun Sellers are not psychiatrists who can administer a test.

I've known an individual who was mentally unbalanced due to alcoholism. He could walk into any gun store with his yellow card and buy the federally minimum amount of weapons without restriction. Yet, you wouldn't want him, the weapon(s), and ammo in the same room.

[LiberalEsto]

5. Too bad there's no breathalyzer test

to detect mental illness.

[FLPanhandle]

6. A better question is "Why are the mentally ill walking the streets?"

As long as we are using this tragedy to restrict rights, why not use it to restrict the rights of the mentally ill too? Let's make it easier to classify someone as mentally ill and institutionalize them for as long as required. Its an acceptable trade-off of rights vs. public safety.

[jody]

7. Why Are the Mentally Ill Still Voting? n/t

[old mark]

8. The Brady Bunch always responds to shootings-contributions go up afterwards,

which is their main purpose-making money.

mark