Sen. Cornyn, With NRA Blessing, Proposes Gun Background Checks

[dennishoddy]

So, how do you all propose we, as a society, handle the issue of mentally unstable people with firearms? It's obvious that self-diagnosis (i.e., admitting issues on the 4473) won't work. Many preach "mental health" nearly every time there's a mass shooting. Sitting back and saying "psychologists don't know what they are doing" and "doctors don't know what they are doing" and "politicians don't know what they are doing" doesn't fix anything. Somebody is going to do something, so it's best to make a good plan get on the offensive side of this one...otherwise, the psychologists, doctors, and politicians will do something. I can also vouch for the fact that many more psychologists support individual gun rights than you might think.

The conundrum of judging mental instability to the level that somebody shouldn't own a firearm is going to be almost impossible to prove IMHO.
Everyone that commits a murder is mentally unstable. Were they unstable 2 days before that, 2 years before?
How does a society deem somebody to be unstable? What markers are checked off by a trained psychologist, or psychiatrist?
Will our government require mental evaluations before signing a 4473?
It looks like its headed that way to me.

 

[jfssms]

So, how do you all propose we, as a society, handle the issue of mentally unstable people with firearms? It's obvious that self-diagnosis (i.e., admitting issues on the 4473) won't work. Many preach "mental health" nearly every time there's a mass shooting. Sitting back and saying "psychologists don't know what they are doing" and "doctors don't know what they are doing" and "politicians don't know what they are doing" doesn't fix anything. Somebody is going to do something, so it's best to make a good plan get on the offensive side of this one...otherwise, the psychologists, doctors, and politicians will do something. I can also vouch for the fact that many more psychologists support individual gun rights than you might think.

Psycho mod how do you square a God given right "if there is one" and reasonable gun control?

 

[Okey-Dokey]

Be careful with mental health gun control. At what point does big.gov deem a citizen nuts just for owning a gun?

 

[YukonGlocker]

The thing I see that needs to happen is the laws enforced on reporting. Many states enforce it, many do not.

What, do you think, ought to be reported, by law?

The conundrum of judging mental instability to the level that somebody shouldn't own a firearm is going to be almost impossible to prove IMHO.
Everyone that commits a murder is mentally unstable. Were they unstable 2 days before that, 2 years before?
How does a society deem somebody to be unstable? What markers are checked off by a trained psychologist, or psychiatrist?
Will our government require mental evaluations before signing a 4473?
It looks like its headed that way to me.

Looks to me like we'll be heading in the direction of: if a trained professional has sufficient evidence, you'll be reported to the system and unable to purchase firearms until a trained professional removes you. We're still a long way from that. This is a very complex problem, and it won't be solved overnight...but rest assured that people are trying to solve it. If we want to have input into the system, now is the time to figure out how we should handle mental issues and guns.

 

[YukonGlocker]

Psycho mod how do you square a God given right "if there is one" and reasonable gun control?

What does god have to do with it?

 

[YukonGlocker]

Be careful with mental health gun control. At what point does big.gov deem a citizen nuts just for owning a gun?

At the end of the slippery slope.

 

[jfssms]

What does god have to do with it?

maybe nothing, I'm very interested in your opinion just the same

 

[Shadowrider]

So, how do you all propose we, as a society, handle the issue of mentally unstable people with firearms? It's obvious that self-diagnosis (i.e., admitting issues on the 4473) won't work.

I yield to the "born with certain unalienable rights" ideology and also the "$h!t happens! It's life get over it" theory. IOW if we as a society allow ANYONE to walk among us, we have no right to say that ANYONE can't have and carry a gun of their choosing full autos included. Now if you want to talk about whether we allow them to walk among us (mentally unstable, dangerous felons, etc.), that's a debatable subject.

I realize that I'm in the vast minority but I'm of the opinion that anybody in society has a right to carry a gun. If they misuse it, they have a right to reap the consequences too. If even 50% of the adult population was walking around strapped this stuff would be occurring a lot less frequently. Suicidal mass murderers, terrorists, thugs, etc. wouldn't carry out their fantasies if they had knowledge that they would be shot down before achieving their goal. I also have no illusions that we will ever get government out of our lives, they just seem to have to be able to tell everyone what to do and how to live and the "it's for the common good" is too far ingrained into society to rectify. It will take a complete societal meltdown to get people to realize what is just common sense on a multitude of issues, this being one of them. There are consequences for both sides, if we let crazies run around, we get to deal with what they may do...

 

[TenBears]

This could never happen in our country!

Political abuse of psychiatry is the misuse of psychiatry, including diagnosis, detention, and treatment for the purposes of obstructing the fundamental human rights of certain groups and individuals in a society.[1][2]:491 In other words, abuse of psychiatry including one for political purposes is deliberate action of getting citizens certified, who, because of their mental condition, need neither psychiatric restraint nor psychiatric treatment.[3] Psychiatrists have been involved in human rights abuses in states across the world when the definitions of mental disease were expanded to include political disobedience.[4]:6 As scholars have long argued, governmental and medical institutions code menaces to authority as mental diseases during political disturbances.[5]:14 Nowadays, in many countries, political prisoners are sometimes confined and abused in mental institutions.[6]:3 Psychiatric confinement of sane people is a particularly pernicious form of repression.[7]

Psychiatry possesses a built-in capacity for abuse that is greater than in other areas of medicine.[8]:65 The diagnosis of mental disease allows the state to hold persons against their will and insist upon therapy in their interest and in the broader interests of society.[8]:65 In addition, receiving a psychiatric diagnosis can in itself be regarded as oppressive.[9]:94 In a monolithic state, psychiatry can be used to bypass standard legal procedures for establishing guilt or innocence and allow political incarceration without the ordinary odium attaching to such political trials.[8]:65 The use of hospitals instead of jails prevents the victims from receiving legal aid before the courts, makes indefinite incarceration possible, discredits the individuals and their ideas.[10]:29 In that manner, whenever open trials are undesirable, they are avoided.[10]:29

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry

 

[dennishoddy]

So we take a mentally unstable person, and adjudicate them a moron. They can't buy a gun.

Guy today in Nashville goes into a theater with a pellet gun, hatchet and pepper spray. I don't know all of the details, but according to unconfirmed reports, he went through the theater spraying the pepper spray before he was fatally shot by an officer.

Do not know his intentions, but it could have got real ugly if he wanted to make it that way.

How do we prevent this by taking away guns? People will kill with what ever they have at hand to kill with.