It will probably be impossible to outlaw guns in the US. There are too many out there now and there are still a lot of protections from taking private property provided by the State and Federal Constitutions. In addition, the NRA will remain a very powerful force in the US.

Having grown up in Reno, Nevada I was rather familiar with guns and their use and abuse having a friend of one of my brother's blow off part of a hand after trying to shoot a gun he found buried in the desert. A very old revolver. Talk about stupid. And a neighbor put a bullet in his head in a suicide because he felt no one loved him. Tragic. If the gun had not been available he would have tried another way. A gun is just a tool like others many of which have been used to kill over the generations.

I still, however, see no reason for rifles and pistols designed for the military to be sold to private citizens. I know it is too late to get the ones that have been sold off the street. But, measures could be taken to control the ebb and flow of such weapons.

Perhaps then we should do the same for those that drive a motor vehicle. Many more killed or maimed by folks who drive with their head up their butt.

I respect the opinions of experts in a field. In this case we are offering our opinions about when a psychiatric evaluation should be required, and few of us know much about the field.

Tal and I have in common desire to delve into research. Below is research into the most common mental disorder associated with crime. It's schizophrenia.

Before we give evaluations to people buying guns, why don't we build a system of mental health where people already known to be insane can be housed and treated? I worked at the Northeast Florida State Hospital where law enforcement would bring acutely ill dangerously insane persons mandated for admission, and the "system" would refuse because there were no beds. In one case I recall, the officer and the insane person spent the entire night in the car in the parking lot.

Rise in crime and premature death among those with schizophrenia in past 30 years – study

I'm not sure that that is true. When I go to the doctor, if he determines that I need some sort of treatment, he must submit a treatment plan to the insurance company which they then must approve before I can receive the treatment. Wouldn't a single payer require that they approve all treatment plans ina similar way. if they would then wound't they have a record of everything that everyone had been treated for?

I also believe and from very personal experience that the powerful in the US have used labels of mental illness to cover up wrongdoings of their own. One of these probably is "paranoid schizophrenic". For instance, starting around January 1991 I fought to be honest about my commitment to improving resources designed for survivors of crimes while still at the University of Minnesota Law Library. I was met with subtle suggestions that I see the University psychologist and then not so subtle. This had nothing to do with concern for my mental well-being but really only had to do with the image of the law library/law school. I sent the same documents that prompted the attack on my mental health to 100 US Senators, half the sitting US Representatives, all the US Governors in 1991, some law school deans, some law professors. I believe only three or four had the same response that, this interest in survivors rights with respect to access to practical information indicated that I needed to see a University psychologist.

The irony though is that after this fight of mine in 1991, there was a CBS National News Report around July 6, 1996 that they had made this approach to attacking internal critics a policy at the Library of Congress where the woman it had been used on had suffered greatly losing her home, job, and probably many friendships for fighting back.

As many know my interest in victims/survivors rights is based on the 2-24 murder of my then high school teacher's daughter Michelle Mitchell near the University of Nevada, Reno campus in 1976.

The CBS News Report of July 6, 1996 said that this policy of attacking critics in terms of the mental health rather than on their ideas originated in Stalin's Soviet Union. Hitler and his Nazi regime had a similiar kind of approach to undesirables. They would label them "paranoid schizophrenic" and just lose them in their mental health system.

I had covered my campaign about helping survivors/victims of crimes while in a study on stress on the unemployed at the University of California San Francisco School of Health Services in late 1992-1993. I was subject #613. The woman doing the interviews of me, Myra Young, waited until the end of the 17 week study and told me that this was a very worthwhile cause. She did seem a little worried about what would become of me though. As many should surmise, I lost any of the bridges I had made while working at the University of Minnesota Law Library as well as at the Legal Assistance to Minnesota Prisoners. Not much someone with no reliable references can do but attempt to fight back.

I will bet that if people searched they would see that this approach to attacking people who tried to improve things from inside the system probably shows up a lot more frequently than it should in what is supposedly a free open society.

My approach to fighting back was to spotlight this problem by getting everyone and anyone I could think of involved with fighting this despicable approach. It takes advantage of people's fear about mental illness a well as their lack of real knowledge of treatments and the like. Of course, who is better to spotlight such problems than the media in all its various forms? I spent a lot of time telling this story to writers, actors, journalists, screenwriters, comedians and anyone else who might listen. Having burned my bridges meant I had to rebuilt them myself piece-by-piece while often having to dodge things coming at me from various directions. For instance, Gary Corsair of the Villages Daily Sun had called me in May 2007 the Memorial Day weekend asking me if I were a "paranoid schizophrenic" because of what some smart alecs had said on Snopes Tinfoil Hat section about some of the more stupid attempts I had made to get more people involved with this struggle. Mr. Gary Corsair was writing a piece on my attempts to get the Florida Victim Services Directory linked to the Lake, Sumter, and Marion County public library websites.

At the time of the mental evaluation he was sane, however after his divorce, loss of job, etc, etc, he went insane.

If we had a government and political leaders we could trust (which we don't) , most people would support this idea. However, since the level of dishonesty is increasingly apparent for all, it would be viewed as nothing more that a series of steps aimed (no pun intended) at effectively confiscating private firearms ownership. That's why people will continue to oppose it.

That probably applies to some who resort to violence like with school and work place shootings. Probably not very many though.

I worked in an institutional hospital in Florida which housed individuals identified through the court system as insane and therefore incompetent to proceed to trial. Most of them were paranoid schizophrenics. When the disorder is exacerbating, it is not a difficult diagnosis to make and at the same time not easy to fake.

Trust me when I say these people were not responsible for their crimes. Typically they had perpetrated what in their mind was either a first strike assault/murder to avoid a perceived coming attack, or their voices were telling them that they were on a special assignment from god to eradicate someone evil.

I wish professionals working in law enforcement and schools knew the age of onset and how to determine whether individuals with mental health symptoms in high school, college and the armed services who might have such a problem. These people have symptoms easily recognizable to someone who knows how to interview.

Very commonly shooters who go on a rampage have already come the attention of law enforcement or mental health providers who lack adequate training for needed screening.

No easy answer.
 

I'm going to try to make this brief, which is difficult for me.

Kitty is correct that it is often easy to identify potentially dangerous mentally ill people. When I was training in this area I was amazed to find how many of the mentally ill would readily admit that they heard voices in their head instructing them to do things when there was no other person present.

Years ago Liberal Activists destroyed the nation's mental health system of compulsory detention of potentially dangerous mentally ill people. Those people are now "the homeless" on our streets who refuse free refuge when it is offered.

------------

Now, back to the Original Post. No, you can't require a psychological exam prior to purchase of a firearm. A psychological exam is a medical procedure and HIPAA law forbids disclosure of the results.

The great obstacle we are presently encountering is the difficulty in establishing a database of people found to be "mentally defective" which disqualifies them from purchasing a firearm.

Frankly, the medical establishment refuses to cooperate.

.

Each of the mass murderers in Virginia Tech, Aurora CO movie theatre, Tuscon shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Gifford et al, Navy ShipYard, Newtown Elementary School, and recent Santa Barbara campus killings, etc. had been seen showing signs of dangerous mental illness, but they were allowed to continue freely in the community.

When are mental health clinicians and courts going to wake up and get these people off the streets and out of schools?

Here is one glaring example:

"A court found that Virginia Tech killer Seung-Hui Cho was "mentally ill" and potentially dangerous. Then it let him go.

In December 2005 -- more than a year before Monday's mass shootings -- a district court in Montgomery County, Va., ruled that Cho presented "an imminent danger to self or others."

That was the necessary criterion for a detention order, so that Cho, who had been accused of stalking by two female schoolmates, could be evaluated by a state doctor and ordered to undergo outpatient care.

According to the "Temporary Detention Order" obtained by ABC News, psychologist Roy Crouse found Cho's "affect is flat and mood is depressed.

"He denies suicidal ideation. He does not acknowledge symptoms of a thought disorder," Dr. Crouse wrote. "His insight and judgment are normal."

That information came to light two days after Cho, a Virginia Tech senior, killed 32 people and then himself in a shooting rampage on the university's campus...."
Va. Tech Killer Ruled Mentally Ill by Court; Let Go After Hospital Visit - ABC News
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And here is another glaring example, the Navy Yard killer:

"A month before he went on the rampage, Alexis complained to police in Rhode Island that people were talking to him through the walls and ceilings of his hotel rooms and sending microwave vibrations into his body to deprive him of sleep, according to The Associated Press. Police notified the Navy of the incident, but it's unclear what was done with that report.

He was shot and killed by police responding to the attack Monday...."
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-...ard-voices-but

That seems way too simplistic. Many of the homeless were/are veterans pushed through the system and not getting the care they need. National Coalition for the Homeless The National Coalition for the Homeless » National Coalition for the Homeless Many are unemployed who could not get a job for whatever reason. A very small number are paranoid schizophrenics. And most of the very large number of mentally ill people NEVER cause any violence to anyone. http://www.nami.org/

There were very serious problems in the mental health system and their still are. Most of these seem because people are obsessed with simple solutions to extremely complicated problems when they are no easy answers when dealing with common sense, bureaucracies, limited funds, and other matters.

You look at the current mess of the Veterans' Administration or prior to that the Catholic Church and sexually active priests (usually with underage boys) and you expect a "mentally defective" list of people to be actually work? It does not seem we are every learning from the lessons from the crooked timber of humanity. You are never going to get that perfect looking house, so to speak, from such lumber.

Look at these statistics from NAMI (probably a little biased, but....)

Less compassion and more bureaucracy does NOT seem to be the answer.

I am glad to hear that. I kind of worried that lawyers would be too quick to use mental illness to get people off who should not go free. I do have faith in juries to see through lawyers' tricks used on behalf of their clients. There also have been so many movies and books about the misuse of the legal system by the powerful with respect to using mental health labels that the typical jury member probably would not buy some slick argument by a lawyer all that quickly.

My next door neighbor in Tarpon Springs was a psychiatrist.She was nutter than a fruit cake.I wouldn't want her to examine anyone.

That's amusing. We had a criminal defense lawyer who owned the house next door. He rented his house out when we lived in Palm Harbor to what seemed like his clients. Some were OK. There was one Coast Guard helicopter pilot would use to buzz his house every once in a while trying to catch his wife cheating on him. You never know what crazy neighbors you might get. Another of his tenants dragged two pit bulls along the street with his car because he thought this would speed them up. http://www.sptimes.com/2003/04/23/No...ragged_b.shtml A boy in the street called 911 about the blood trail which lead back to the house next door. There were some pretty ****ed PETA members around our neighborhood for a while.

If we just think about the neighbors we all have had would you want these people in charge of who goes in or out of a nut house? Some of my neighbors over the years have had a lot of compassion and common sense --especially those we have had in the Villages-- others not so much.

States have also refused to cooperate.

Takes one to know one.
 

In my career I had to interview many psychiatrists regarding their patients who had articulated threats to harm the President.

After many such interviews I reached the conclusion that the psychiatrists spend so much time with the mentally ill that they adopt many of their patients' characteristics and often lose their ability to discern what is abnormal.

There are also psychiatrists that are no more than pill pushers. They see a symptom from the book they use to treat patients and just prescribe accordingly to their cook book or Bible-- the DSM. http://www.psych.org/practice/dsm They seem to forget that psychiatry is more art than science especially given how many fads it has had in its very young history as a discipline.

As some may know, I had a nervous breakdown from long term stress (and perhaps other factors which I hope someone is investigating from the documents I sent the ObamaCare people a few months ago) in late March of 2000. I was in the care of a few psychiatrists who never even talked to me while I was in the Clearwater hospital but did charge my parents several thousands of dollars for this treatment. I remember pretty much everything that happened to me. I went into a Pinellas Park facility for a week or so without seeing a judge. One very kind orderly told me to shut up and just roll with the treatment, be friendly, and take your pills. Which I did. I then was with a Directions for Mental Health psychiatrist for about 18 months who charged me $10 a visit but taking or not taking her prescribed pills had no effect on me. I experimented with taking them and not taking them. I did report what I had thought happened to me to cause a nervous breakdown to the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office by going down there to their headquarters and thumbing a letter from the Palm Harbor US Representative in front of the nose of the desk clerk so I could talk to a detective--Crandell. I then handed him--Crandell-- a few hundred documents about my survivors/victims rights campaign of 1990-2000 or so. This was on September 18, 2002. The psychiatrists I spoke to in Pinellas County were very poor examples of their profession. The one that I had whenever I told her that something else was going on with me-- in twenty or so e-mails-- would just up my medication or tell me its not her job to look into what I was claiming had happened. Detective Crandell just said that if what I asserted had happened to me-- no crime was involved. (I am not saying more because again I hope that the ObamaCare people are looking into this and connecting various dots from the documents I gave them a few months ago).

I had no mental health problems before 2000 and except for occasional depression-- mainly because no one believed my story-- not much since 2000. I did try to get NAMI-Pinellas County involved but the psychiatrist I had over those 18 months was the same one treating the daughter of the Chapter Head of NAMI-Pinellas County. http://www.nami.org/MSTemplate.cfm?MicrositeID=220 And, she swore the woman treating her daughter was a great psychiatrist.

Thanks for seldom seen voice of reason!

We do need checks and balances. In my own situation in the Summer of 2000, so that I would not be so easy a mark so to speak I started volunteering at Palm Harbor Library and also pushing my victims/survivors' access to information agenda to a small extent but mainly just trying to be helpful and friendly at the library as I try to be on TOTV.

I thought this would also open up doors into libraries in the Tampa Bay area as I have a MA in Librarianship and Information Management from the University of Denver (Class of May, 1984). All went well and I managed to get the Florida Victim Services Directory linked to their website for a time. Things went south though after I met the Palm Harbor Library Director Gene Coppola who admitted that he could see no mental health problems ( I did feel I needed to tell him about the mental health problem I had earlier in 2000 https://www.talkofthevillages.com/fo...57-post58.html but in a very non disturbing way). He thought my victims rights' campaign was a worthwhile one but then told me he wanted 50% of any fundings for the Palm Harbor Library he might help get by adding his input. I said no AND the doors to libraries in the Tampa Bay area started shutting for my finding work based on the contacts I made while volunteering. I had volunteered hoping that would land me paying work. I volunteered in Palm Harbor's two public libraries (I was also at East Lake Community Library in Palm Harbor from about September 2000 or so through maybe May 2003) for 10 to 14 hours a week for almost three years.

One person can really sway things in the wrong direction. All Gene Coppola needed to do was say I was a good worker (which I was) and keep the library website linked to the Florida Victim Services Directory. Instead, they started playing politics with the link and it soon vanished from their website.

Some one in a small pond can cause trouble just like someone in an even larger one. Coppola and I kind of caused problems for one another. I even received a Cease and Desist order from the Palm Harbor Library General Counsel on March 2, 2004 because of my complaining about the truth of the statement that there was a link to the Florida Victim Services Directory in the Palm Harbor Library website. I asked a number of Palm Harbor Library reference librarians after I quit volunteering because of the disappearance of this link. They had agreed with me that there was no link. It was important to me because I had been e-mailing many people fighting for a link to a similar victims' assistance directories in other states while also mentioning that I was listed in various Marquis Who's Who volumes. They listed me as having volunteered at two public libraries in Palm Harbor.

I do not expect personalities in more powerful positions are all that different from Gene Coppola's and mine. I do think people will use anything to play politics with especially those connected with the NRA who seem more concerned with putting up a brave fight for the 2nd Amendment rather than stopping the gun violence in the US which could be, at least curbed, with some common sense limitations on guns designed for the military being sold legally in the states. There would still be illegal gun sales of course but it would get some guns out of future marketplaces.

FYI I have tried to keep very friendly relationships with my minor dealings with Lake and Sumter County librarians whom I have found open and honest to my input. I do not volunteer in libraries anymore though. I had really wanted to move to the Villages in 2005 from Palm Harbor because Gene Coppola was also the Chairman of the Board of the Palm Harbor Chamber of Commerce and I had made some enemies when pointing out that there was no link to the Florida Victim Services Directory. I have not looked but I sincerely doubt if there is a link now as that would make them admit that they had needed one in the first or second place. http://www.palmharborlibrary.org/ The second place as there was one before I did not take Coppola up on the offer of 50% he thought I could not refuse. Not that it matters, but Gene Coppola is no relation to the San Francisco Francis Ford Coppola clan. He is from NYC.

the original thread had to do with whether there should be some sort of mental background check. And after a lot of pages of a lot about other subjects the answer to the original question is still a loud and clear NO!

How could there ever be a determination of what is the right level of wacko-ness or non standard behavior or not acting like we thinone should act.

Enforcement IMPOSSIBLE!!!!! Take a real simple one that is very measurable....the speed limit. They can cite you (or not) because they have a standard (the speed limit). Over it = bad under it = OK.
And if......IF....cited the fines are fairly stiff....as they should be.

So they have a standard. Do we still have speeding? Of course. How could that be possible....we have a law that states how fast we are allowed to go, don't we?

The missing ingredient is ENFORCEMENT. We all know if the cops aren't there we speed.

Now that you have my example just how do some of you think a mental state check could be made?

The single biggest problem in the realm of gun control is the existing laws are not ENFORCED.

Enforcement goes against the current permissive direction our society has taken.

Talk is cheap. Enforcement is not!!

I do not think there is any quick test like that for blood alcohol content for whether or not someone will ACT on mental illness in a violent way. It is a whole lot more than just talking crazy. People watching out for other people is part of a solution to this though. If your neighbor is doing something that looks like it might lead to violence against himself or to others we should certainly call the police. My neighbor David N. in Reno, Nevada shot himself in the head mainly because he felt no one loved nor understood him. At least, that was in the note as I remember it. He was developmentally challenged and I believe some people made fun of him. He was probably about 25 when he killed himself. I was around 13 or 14. We did not know what to do to help David N. He lived with his parents and probably would have remained with them for a long time. The neighbor next to him also in Reno, NV a few years before that hung himself due to gambling debts he could not pay back. Not much could have been done for him except maybe if he had moved out of a gambling mecca like Reno, NV.

IMHO this topic is complicated and politicizing it doesn't help. There is a town in Europe forget the town name and country wherein a nun dedicated her life to people with mental health issues and was successful in soliciting the help of townsfolk who took in and cared for them. If a person was having an episode they would be hospitalized stabilized and return to their home I suspect being treated as a normal human being has as much a positive effect on them as does the health care they receive.

In this European society they are not stigmitized. They have rights but with rights comes responsibility and if they are unable to recognize that responsibility than there is a procedure in place there to deal with it.

In America do gooders had good intentions but a poor plan and freed people who needed care but could not even recognize their needs or a place to treat them. So without insight these patients walk the streets. Some believe the cure is worse than the disease and in some manner they are correct. However isn't that true of the guy who takes a prescription for blood pressure or any other ailment....the so called side effects

Do gooders again made laws that prevented family members who who cared enough to stand by the side of their sons, daughters parents from securing help for them

All this talk about gun control evaluations for licenses, etc is a distraction.

America is suppose to be the land of problem solvers who can do great things. However, when it comes to our approach and thinking about mental health we are in the Dark Ages and that includes many psychiatric professionals.

if you don't agree tell me how you react to this comparison.

If a person is having a hear attack the medical people zap with an electrical charge to regain balance.

If a mental patient is having an episode medical people zap them with electricity to regain balance. Same procedure different organ

Are they the same to you?

Perhaps there should be mental evaluations for buying alcholic beverages. Perhaps we should have mental evaluations for voting? Perhaps if you don't agree with me, you might need a mental evaluation. If you don't believe in climate change, should you be evaluated?

I believe some political systems have come to this. Think of the opposite though where Roman Emperors might execute someone who told them their horse should not be a Roman Senator. In hindsight, some of these Roman and Byzantine emperors were very mentally ill, but no one could tell them if they valued having their head still connected to their body after they told them this. http://listverse.com/2010/10/14/top-...insane-rulers/

Assuming that we had such a test and the person in question passed the test, how do we know that the person has not deteriorated over time and not is no longer sane? Do we need checkups?

When a person is found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, he was pronounced sane. After 15 years on death row and living in a secluded environment, he is now declared mentally incompetent and is no longer eligible for the death sentence.

Is that fair to the family of the victim that he killed? And probably in a horrific fashion.

Z

That's a very good question zcaveman. Should we kill people who become insane due to their life in prison for heinous crimes they committed when in full control of their faculties? I do believe that a person should know that they are being punished for what they did and if they are too far gone to even know that.... I would be very sceptical though of lawyers making this claim as well as the psychiatrists in their employ.

You know I have great respect and drive to get victims involved in the criminal justice system, so they should have quite a lot of say in this. Of course, no two victim families are alike. Some are very quick to turn the cheek, while others might take the law in their own hands if given any chance.

For most of these recent killers, their psychiatrists knew exactly what was wrong with them. They also knew what prescribed meds they were on and what the "side effects" might be. The doctors should warn the powers that be.

We will probably all get a real education on psychiatry and the law with the upcoming Aurora Theater shooter trial this October 2014. Accused Colorado theater shooter's trial date set for fall - CNN.com

The jury selection will be open to the public to view, too. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/...public-n128961

To me James Holmes looked like he carefully planned this attack, knew what he was doing was evil, but did it anyway. Some of his ideas are nuts but his actions and the planning around them show he had the intention necessary for all these murder charges to stick.

We will probably find out more about what the psychiatrists/psychologists knew about James Holmes before the shootings when the trial comes up. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/james-ho...fore-shooting/

Yes i agree
 

.............

Don't more people die in car accidents every year? Yet no one is calling for a mental stability test to drive a car.