7 ms·

I see nothing wrong with denying anyone guns for a limited period of time because their state of mind is in question. I don't see who is losing out when this ha

I see nothing wrong with denying anyone guns for a limited period of time because their state of mind is in question. I don't see who is losing out when this happens.

voldacar 7y ago
Their state of mind as determined how and by whom though? This just makes it easier for whoever happens to be in power to deny rights to [disliked or marginalized group] Also the connection between gun violence and mental health is extremely tenuous, and I would add that firearm homicides in the states are at a multi-decade low right now, though the media would have people believe otherwise
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- h0h0h0h0111 7y ago
  > I would add that firearm homicides in the states are at a multi-decade low right now Have you a good source for that? I seem to find lots of unclear sources. I found a source that they are down from their peak in 1993 (this source was 2013: https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/07/gun-homicide-rate-down-49-since-1993-peak-public-unaware/ https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/07/gun-homicide-rate...), but that the last 10 years has been a climb back up (https://edition.cnn.com/2018/12/13/health/gun-deaths-highest-40-years-cdc/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2018/12/13/health/gun-deaths-highest... which I sourced from wikipedia, and granted is overall deaths rather than just homicides)
  - voldacar 7y ago
    Yeah my source was the same dataset from Pew.
- pnw_hazor 7y ago
  A high percentage of ex parte temporary protection/restraining orders are later found to be unwarranted when the restrained party has their chance to argue against the order. Also, lazy family law attorneys often include requests for protection orders as a matter of course in divorce filings. These often have similar firearm restrictions as so-called red flag laws.
raxxorrax 7y ago
My country has a history of institutionalizing dissidents with a reference to their mental health. I am not based in the US but I would be heavily against restricting any rights on that basis.
vorticalbox 7y ago
Because you have the right to due process, wh9ch you dont get when being but on the list. And sure in some cases it works but if you have no way to fight the claims, there is nothing stopping it being abused.
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  I always wonder what due process means in a country where most people can't afford a $400 emergency.
WalterBright 7y ago
All too often, officially labeling people one doesn't like as "crazy", "unbalanced", etc. has been used to marginalize/destroy them. I don't want crazy people to have guns, either, but I worry about the path we go down here because it's very, very difficult to objectively find the line between crazy and sane. (Historical examples of such abuse include people having the wrong religion, the wrong sexual orientation, and the wrong political beliefs.)
- droithomme 7y ago
  > I don't want crazy people to have guns I realize that's a common position, but it strikes me as strange. It seems to assume that crazy people are the ones committing violent crimes. If that was actually the case though we would have huge numbers of mass murders and killings resolved with the defendant being declared not guilty by reason of insanity. That's not the case though, a finding of not guilty by reason of insanity is an extremely rare situation, almost unheard of in the court system. The reality is that overwhelmingly it is not the crazy but the sane who commit the violence and the mass murders. It makes more sense, based on not guilty by insanity statistics, to allow crazy people to have guns, and disallow the sane from having them.
  - krapp 7y ago
    It's a mistake to assume that the legal definition of insanity used to determine whether a defendant can stand trial is the only one relevant to conversation. Someone who commits mass murder can be legally sane if they are cognizant of the concept of right and wrong, are not severely mentally handicapped, are capable of understanding and responding to questions, etc. Yet I doubt anyone would consider a person capable of shooting up a synagogue to be sane. I don't think it would be "strange" to consider that someone with suicidal thoughts or someone in the heat of passion should be trusted with a firearm simply because they can also sign their own name.
    - droithomme 7y ago
      Well the discussion was about "crazy" people, people who are not just colloquially crazy (ie Bob is crazy if he thinks we can get this fix done by the weekend) but clinically insane. > someone with suicidal thoughts I don't think someone with suicidal thoughts is crazy. In fact I've never heard of anyone that doesn't have suicidal thoughts at some point in their life. That's a normal part of human existence. Different from an attempted suicide though. And someone attempting suicide is also not insane simply because of that. > or someone in the heat of passion That doesn't sound like insanity to me either. I don't even know how something like that could be evaluated. How would a gun seller know someone is in the "heat of passion"? The phrasing suggests a temporary emotional state of some kind. Perhaps the idea is if they are ranting and screaming at the gun seller and claiming they are going to use the gun to commit a mass shooting. And in that case gun sellers don't sell guns. Someone who in this heat of passion who intends to commit violence presumably is going to act normal while buying the gun. Not insanity, not something that can be determined at point of sale. > I doubt anyone would consider a person capable of shooting up a synagogue to be sane Antisemitism is pretty common among those known to be sane. No physician would diagnose madness simply based on antisemitic beliefs. There have been groups in history that mass murdered Jews, and other groups, who were the predominant people and majority of their society. They were not insane in the general case so it's not correct that someone capable of committing atrocities, including genocide, is not sane. Is a previous diagnoses of madness by a qualified medical professional using accepted standards of practice a common or even not-infrequent attribute of mass shooters and murders? Not that I can see. So we're back to someone not known to be insane - a sane person - doing this crime and the label only being applied after the fact. Again, I propose that the insane are more responsible gun owners than the sane because so few murder convictions involve those actually determined at any point to be insane by anyone qualified to make such a determination. It's easy to say killers are crazy. How does that help prevent crime? It is counterproductive in fact because it suggests that restricting civil and constitutional rights of people with diagnosed mental illnesses (about 1/5 the US population is on psychiatric drugs which require a diagnosis to be prescribed) is a solution when this group is not in fact the group that is committing these crimes and therefore there is no reasonable premise for restricting said rights.
mikekchar 7y ago
Personally I don't see anything wrong with denying people guns. <- that's a full stop ;-) However in the US it is your constitutional right to bear arms. This has been widely (virtually universally in the US) regarded to mean that it is your right to not be denied a gun (without due process). Questioning someone's state of mind is not due process. It really doesn't matter if we are talking about guns or we are talking about hamsters: if you have a right enshrined by your constitution it's pretty darn important that you don't have that right stripped away simply because someone levels an accusation at you. It would be pretty weird to have a right to bear hamsters...
- DoctorOetker 7y ago
  fair enough, I still think it is good to deny a person a gun, especially when theres red flags going off, but I agree that there should be an appeals process. I guess the reason there isn't (if there isn't, what do I know) is because authorities do not want suspicious people to find out why they are suspicious... but that should mean either nobody gets the right to own a gun, or everyone, ... unless authorities do disclose why some person should be denied a gun...
  - maxwell 7y ago
    Who decides who should take away the guns, and how do you prevent them abusing that power?
    - wool_gather 7y ago
      We already have a fairly robust* process for deciding that someone's fundamental day-to-day freedom should be taken away -- i.e., for deciding to put them in prison. Is there any inherent reason we couldn't have a similar process for gun ownership? *Not flawless, of course, but what is?
      - maxwell 7y ago
        If you're talking about the U.S. prison-industrial system, you answered your own question. More people are imprisoned in the United States than were in the Soviet gulags or Nazi Germany. More black people are in the prison/parole system than were enslaved before the passage of the 13th Amendment.
erik_seaberg 7y ago
Any sufficient reason to render them helpless is an equally good reason to lock them up. Both are dehumanizing.
stevenicr 7y ago
I occasionally consider how this could be used with the other things in the bill of rights. A couple people swear that person C has questionable state of mind and their free speech is taken - social accounts frozen, ability to address city council, publish things, use the mail.. do this 6 weeks before an election or council votes for example. Before an IPO? I believe that almost half of those on fbk would get almost half of people kicked, and vice versa.. If search and seizure rights could be suspended groups could go door to door finding something to remove entire populations from the voting block. just a couple of people saying they are concerned, what things could happen with the other rights? How groups in power could use these things is an interesting consideration.
Lazare 7y ago
Do you see a problem with denying someone the ability to vote in an election, or to petition the government, or to have an abortion, or to be free of unreasonable searches, for a limited period of time because their state of mind is in question? All of those examples are clearly terrible, right? If merely "questioning" someone's state of mind is enough to strip a fundamental right, then a bad actor could trivially strip that right from people when they need it most. I suspect what you're getting at is that you disagree with gun ownership being treated as an important right like "not being thrown in prison for no reason" or "being able to criticise the government" or "voting", but given that it is a protected right in the US, it's nonsense to suggest that a right should not be protected, or that merely having a right temporarily removed is not a significant infringement.
- cr0sh 7y ago
  We are having mass shootings at a minimum of one a month. Ordinary person-on-person gun violence happens daily. Ideally, neither of these would be regular occurrences, but they are. Are we to just throw our hands up in the air and say "oh well"? Would you still think that if you were among those shot, as you lay there bleeding to death? Let me tell you this - I'm politically liberal, and I support 2nd Amendment rights. Reading the various arguments presented in this article's thread, I agree with many of the 2nd Amendment viewpoints addressed about the nuances and such of the right. Even so, I feel that something needs to be done to get our current out-of-control situation under control. The problem is, I'm not sure that circle can be squared, so to speak. The consensus seems to be that if you want an intact 2nd Amendment, then you have to be willing to be among the dead victims in a shooting. I'm not sure that is what the Framers intended the 2nd Amendment to be about. In fact - just thinking about the wording of the 2nd Amendment right now - isn't it more focused on the right of the people to keep and bear arms, for the protection of country (or State?), being part of the militia - against internal or external threats to it? That is, again thinking about it, it doesn't seem to indicate that such people are free to carry or use their weapons at just any time they wanted to, but for when there was a perceived threat against the collective, not the individual? Of course, they would need to always have access to their weapon, so they should be able to carry it, in case that threat arrives when they are away from home or something... This is more a exercise in reading the wording of that particular amendment - the nuances of the words, comma placement, etc. Maybe my above "re-interpretation" is not compatible; I know it certainly isn't the interpretation of the courts today. It feels like I want to have my cake and eat it, too. I don't want to be the victim, or my loved ones to be victims, of potential future random gun violence. At the same time, I want to keep the 2nd Amendment intact. For me that would mean the ability to hunt, the ability to shoot predators or varmints on my land, the ability to protect myself and my fellow citizens if needed, the ability to practice (ideally in a controlled range), and the ability to own the guns I want and keep them in a safe manner, with proper training. Is it possible for both to be accomodated? I certainly hope it can - but maybe I'm just nursing along a fantasy...

I see nothing wrong with denying anyone guns for a limited period of time because their state of mind is in question. I don't see who is losing out when this happens.

voldacar 7y ago

Their state of mind as determined how and by whom though? This just makes it easier for whoever happens to be in power to deny rights to [disliked or marginalized group] Also the connection between gun violence and mental health is extremely tenuous, and I would add that firearm homicides in the states are at a multi-decade low right now, though the media would have people believe otherwise

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
h0h0h0h0111 7y ago
> I would add that firearm homicides in the states are at a multi-decade low right now Have you a good source for that? I seem to find lots of unclear sources. I found a source that they are down from their peak in 1993 (this source was 2013: https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/07/gun-homicide-rate-down-49-since-1993-peak-public-unaware/ https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/07/gun-homicide-rate...), but that the last 10 years has been a climb back up (https://edition.cnn.com/2018/12/13/health/gun-deaths-highest-40-years-cdc/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2018/12/13/health/gun-deaths-highest... which I sourced from wikipedia, and granted is overall deaths rather than just homicides)
- voldacar 7y ago
  Yeah my source was the same dataset from Pew.
pnw_hazor 7y ago
A high percentage of ex parte temporary protection/restraining orders are later found to be unwarranted when the restrained party has their chance to argue against the order. Also, lazy family law attorneys often include requests for protection orders as a matter of course in divorce filings. These often have similar firearm restrictions as so-called red flag laws.

raxxorrax 7y ago

My country has a history of institutionalizing dissidents with a reference to their mental health. I am not based in the US but I would be heavily against restricting any rights on that basis.

vorticalbox 7y ago

Because you have the right to due process, wh9ch you dont get when being but on the list. And sure in some cases it works but if you have no way to fight the claims, there is nothing stopping it being abused.

Gibbon1 7y ago
I always wonder what due process means in a country where most people can't afford a $400 emergency.

WalterBright 7y ago

All too often, officially labeling people one doesn't like as "crazy", "unbalanced", etc. has been used to marginalize/destroy them. I don't want crazy people to have guns, either, but I worry about the path we go down here because it's very, very difficult to objectively find the line between crazy and sane. (Historical examples of such abuse include people having the wrong religion, the wrong sexual orientation, and the wrong political beliefs.)

droithomme 7y ago
> I don't want crazy people to have guns I realize that's a common position, but it strikes me as strange. It seems to assume that crazy people are the ones committing violent crimes. If that was actually the case though we would have huge numbers of mass murders and killings resolved with the defendant being declared not guilty by reason of insanity. That's not the case though, a finding of not guilty by reason of insanity is an extremely rare situation, almost unheard of in the court system. The reality is that overwhelmingly it is not the crazy but the sane who commit the violence and the mass murders. It makes more sense, based on not guilty by insanity statistics, to allow crazy people to have guns, and disallow the sane from having them.
- krapp 7y ago
  It's a mistake to assume that the legal definition of insanity used to determine whether a defendant can stand trial is the only one relevant to conversation. Someone who commits mass murder can be legally sane if they are cognizant of the concept of right and wrong, are not severely mentally handicapped, are capable of understanding and responding to questions, etc. Yet I doubt anyone would consider a person capable of shooting up a synagogue to be sane. I don't think it would be "strange" to consider that someone with suicidal thoughts or someone in the heat of passion should be trusted with a firearm simply because they can also sign their own name.
  - droithomme 7y ago
    Well the discussion was about "crazy" people, people who are not just colloquially crazy (ie Bob is crazy if he thinks we can get this fix done by the weekend) but clinically insane. > someone with suicidal thoughts I don't think someone with suicidal thoughts is crazy. In fact I've never heard of anyone that doesn't have suicidal thoughts at some point in their life. That's a normal part of human existence. Different from an attempted suicide though. And someone attempting suicide is also not insane simply because of that. > or someone in the heat of passion That doesn't sound like insanity to me either. I don't even know how something like that could be evaluated. How would a gun seller know someone is in the "heat of passion"? The phrasing suggests a temporary emotional state of some kind. Perhaps the idea is if they are ranting and screaming at the gun seller and claiming they are going to use the gun to commit a mass shooting. And in that case gun sellers don't sell guns. Someone who in this heat of passion who intends to commit violence presumably is going to act normal while buying the gun. Not insanity, not something that can be determined at point of sale. > I doubt anyone would consider a person capable of shooting up a synagogue to be sane Antisemitism is pretty common among those known to be sane. No physician would diagnose madness simply based on antisemitic beliefs. There have been groups in history that mass murdered Jews, and other groups, who were the predominant people and majority of their society. They were not insane in the general case so it's not correct that someone capable of committing atrocities, including genocide, is not sane. Is a previous diagnoses of madness by a qualified medical professional using accepted standards of practice a common or even not-infrequent attribute of mass shooters and murders? Not that I can see. So we're back to someone not known to be insane - a sane person - doing this crime and the label only being applied after the fact. Again, I propose that the insane are more responsible gun owners than the sane because so few murder convictions involve those actually determined at any point to be insane by anyone qualified to make such a determination. It's easy to say killers are crazy. How does that help prevent crime? It is counterproductive in fact because it suggests that restricting civil and constitutional rights of people with diagnosed mental illnesses (about 1/5 the US population is on psychiatric drugs which require a diagnosis to be prescribed) is a solution when this group is not in fact the group that is committing these crimes and therefore there is no reasonable premise for restricting said rights.

mikekchar 7y ago

Personally I don't see anything wrong with denying people guns. <- that's a full stop ;-) However in the US it is your constitutional right to bear arms. This has been widely (virtually universally in the US) regarded to mean that it is your right to not be denied a gun (without due process). Questioning someone's state of mind is not due process. It really doesn't matter if we are talking about guns or we are talking about hamsters: if you have a right enshrined by your constitution it's pretty darn important that you don't have that right stripped away simply because someone levels an accusation at you. It would be pretty weird to have a right to bear hamsters...

DoctorOetker 7y ago
fair enough, I still think it is good to deny a person a gun, especially when theres red flags going off, but I agree that there should be an appeals process. I guess the reason there isn't (if there isn't, what do I know) is because authorities do not want suspicious people to find out why they are suspicious... but that should mean either nobody gets the right to own a gun, or everyone, ... unless authorities do disclose why some person should be denied a gun...
- maxwell 7y ago
  Who decides who should take away the guns, and how do you prevent them abusing that power?
  - wool_gather 7y ago
    We already have a fairly robust* process for deciding that someone's fundamental day-to-day freedom should be taken away -- i.e., for deciding to put them in prison. Is there any inherent reason we couldn't have a similar process for gun ownership? *Not flawless, of course, but what is?
    - maxwell 7y ago
      If you're talking about the U.S. prison-industrial system, you answered your own question. More people are imprisoned in the United States than were in the Soviet gulags or Nazi Germany. More black people are in the prison/parole system than were enslaved before the passage of the 13th Amendment.

erik_seaberg 7y ago

Any sufficient reason to render them helpless is an equally good reason to lock them up. Both are dehumanizing.

stevenicr 7y ago

I occasionally consider how this could be used with the other things in the bill of rights. A couple people swear that person C has questionable state of mind and their free speech is taken - social accounts frozen, ability to address city council, publish things, use the mail.. do this 6 weeks before an election or council votes for example. Before an IPO? I believe that almost half of those on fbk would get almost half of people kicked, and vice versa.. If search and seizure rights could be suspended groups could go door to door finding something to remove entire populations from the voting block. just a couple of people saying they are concerned, what things could happen with the other rights? How groups in power could use these things is an interesting consideration.

Lazare 7y ago

Do you see a problem with denying someone the ability to vote in an election, or to petition the government, or to have an abortion, or to be free of unreasonable searches, for a limited period of time because their state of mind is in question? All of those examples are clearly terrible, right? If merely "questioning" someone's state of mind is enough to strip a fundamental right, then a bad actor could trivially strip that right from people when they need it most. I suspect what you're getting at is that you disagree with gun ownership being treated as an important right like "not being thrown in prison for no reason" or "being able to criticise the government" or "voting", but given that it is a protected right in the US, it's nonsense to suggest that a right should not be protected, or that merely having a right temporarily removed is not a significant infringement.

cr0sh 7y ago
We are having mass shootings at a minimum of one a month. Ordinary person-on-person gun violence happens daily. Ideally, neither of these would be regular occurrences, but they are. Are we to just throw our hands up in the air and say "oh well"? Would you still think that if you were among those shot, as you lay there bleeding to death? Let me tell you this - I'm politically liberal, and I support 2nd Amendment rights. Reading the various arguments presented in this article's thread, I agree with many of the 2nd Amendment viewpoints addressed about the nuances and such of the right. Even so, I feel that something needs to be done to get our current out-of-control situation under control. The problem is, I'm not sure that circle can be squared, so to speak. The consensus seems to be that if you want an intact 2nd Amendment, then you have to be willing to be among the dead victims in a shooting. I'm not sure that is what the Framers intended the 2nd Amendment to be about. In fact - just thinking about the wording of the 2nd Amendment right now - isn't it more focused on the right of the people to keep and bear arms, for the protection of country (or State?), being part of the militia - against internal or external threats to it? That is, again thinking about it, it doesn't seem to indicate that such people are free to carry or use their weapons at just any time they wanted to, but for when there was a perceived threat against the collective, not the individual? Of course, they would need to always have access to their weapon, so they should be able to carry it, in case that threat arrives when they are away from home or something... This is more a exercise in reading the wording of that particular amendment - the nuances of the words, comma placement, etc. Maybe my above "re-interpretation" is not compatible; I know it certainly isn't the interpretation of the courts today. It feels like I want to have my cake and eat it, too. I don't want to be the victim, or my loved ones to be victims, of potential future random gun violence. At the same time, I want to keep the 2nd Amendment intact. For me that would mean the ability to hunt, the ability to shoot predators or varmints on my land, the ability to protect myself and my fellow citizens if needed, the ability to practice (ideally in a controlled range), and the ability to own the guns I want and keep them in a safe manner, with proper training. Is it possible for both to be accomodated? I certainly hope it can - but maybe I'm just nursing along a fantasy...