The fellow in this case had a ‘distant episode’ in 1986 related to a divorce. Apparently he’s in good health now and maybe his treatment years ago helped him to get healthy. So the judges were correct in that this was an overreach by government gun grabbers.
However, there are some brain diseases that are clinically diagnosable by an MD Psychiatrist, not a licensed psychologist using a DSM IV manual (no disrespect intended to clinical psychologists but very few of you carry the weight, legal liability and responsibility that a fully board certified MD Psychiatrist does).
One of the ***clinical*** brain diseases that are frequently involved in insane killings is Bipolar Disorder (BP) and I emphasize that it is a clinical disease similar and related to epilepsy where uncontrolled body movements take over in episodes of insanity. I emphasize this is a ***clinical*** diagnosable disease because many if us know someone who has frequent mood swings and perhaps related severe migraines which symptoms sometimes appear to be BP but are not. A person with BP loses all sense of themselves going into a coma like state or appearing to behave as a wild vicious animal with frothing at the mouth, constricted pupils that appear cold and dead-like often with unblinking eyelids and a glancing and staring upwards for many minutes.
A person with BP who is in an episode of BP does not know who they are or where they are. The episodes can last from about 30 minutes to 2 hours and once over the BP person often has no memory of what happened in the episode. Often they are left sweating with clammy skin and often crying for help. Then they return to normal as if nothing happened while the people around then are left trembling and traumatized.
When we read in the papers of a mass or inexplicable killing, odds are there is a person with BP involved. And the BP person often turns the gun on themselves because to them the pain is so severe that blowing one’s brains out is relief.
These diseases are treatable but must be treated and diagnosed by a doctor. Doctors should have the power to institutionalize these patients for the purpose of treating and controlling these disorder. There are less severe forms of BP that do not require institutionalization. An example is Actress Catherine Zeta-Jones who suffers from BP II. She is aware of her condition and can feel when it’s coming on. She locks herself in her room and waits for it to pass. She has done a great service to make the public aware of the nature of these diseases.
The danger to our rights with respect to gun control is that gun grabbers/disarmers will use the episodes of BP persons to justify a government overreach as if disarming the population will solve problems associated with such brain diseases.
The doctors are in a bind because on the one hand they must respect the patient-doctor relationship and on the other hand they must be concerned for public safety. Gun grabbers are always urging doctors to report on all disclosed guns in the home or attitudes towards guns even for normal patients and children! This is wrong!
One suggestion to these dilemmas is for awareness of the condition to be broadcast widely so that persons with the disease will seek treatment without suffering social stigma. Most persons with these degenerative brain diseases are very cooperative about getting treatment and society should not stigmatize them for getting help. Most such persons can live normal productive lives when under care of a doctor. A very few are so far gone that they must be institutionalized.
If the disease progresses and the person is aware of its progression, they will know that they can be a danger to society and to themselves. They could be encouraged to sign voluntarily a waiver of their gun rights and to assign responsibility for decision making regarding their hospitalization or institutionalization.
These diseases are the worst because during an episode the person you think you know and love is not there. They have literally lost it. Whereas with cancer or heart disease, we still have the person in our lives, we can make the journey with them holding their hand and they holding ours; not so with severe brain diseases.
Be aware of this category of disease! Don’t let the gun grabbers generalize it to all of society to take away our unalienable Rights!
I have a son with BP, and although he does well on his medication, I would not want him to own a gun. That is a lot different than the normal human being that has a bout of depression or anxiety due to some temporary issues. But the gun grabbers would argue against that because they just want to grab everyone’s guns.