Posted on 03/25/2019 3:55:24 PM PDT by Star Traveler
When you know there is a problem coming ...
I have a friend, originally introduced to me by a Christian pastor that I know … and I have been helping the friend through his many problems surrounding the disabilities he has (briefly … diagnosed/on the record PTSD and Schizophrenia). He’s been in the military, over to Iraq, and discharged honorably.
The problem I see, today, has to do with the weapons he owns, and what I see as some serious trouble ‘coming down the pike’. He has a concealed weapons permit (in the last year, in Oklahoma) for a .38 he carries and he recently purchased a Mossberg shotgun for home. I was there when the gun shop ran the check and he got it and took it home.
Now, the trouble is … that he’s telling me things that don’t quite line up with having all your ‘ducks in a row’ … upstairs. He’s delusional about things. He’s sure the ‘government’ has taken over his phone and that the government has ‘stolen his identity’ over the last year. He needs a lot of medical care, and since he doesn’t have a car, I take him around. He has problems with doctors, basically telling them what they should prescribed for him and when they don’t comply, he has called the police on them, telling them that the doctors are abusing him. Of course, he loses a lot of doctors. He has had a psychiatrist in the past, but when the doctor moved to another city, he hasn’t been under care of another one … he’s tried several different doctors, he tells me that either they have the wrong philosophy or they don’t want him or they holler and scream at him and tell him to ‘get out of here’ (according to what he told me).
He happens to be in the hospital now … having a major psychotic break, being picked up off the street by an ambulance (Saturday) and has been totally unable to communicate, just hollering and screaming and being tied down in a hospital bed and just non-functional. He’s been there three days and today is the first day he’s been able to talk at all. However, he’s sure the hospital personnel are ‘gassing him’ through his hospital bed and that they are also listening in to everything he says.
Today a psychiatrist came in and asked him some basic questions, like where he was, what year it is, what is his address, what’s his birthday and who are the other people in the room (like me and his father). He had trouble answering some, or didn’t want to answer. He couldn’t, or didn’t want to give his address, although he answered some of the other basic questions.
Now, I happen to have a key to his place, since his pet cat needs to be fed, and some fish taken care of. I grabbed his shotgun and his .38 from his apartment and carried them back over to my house. I told him today that I did that, and I said that it wasn’t a good idea to leave them there, with no one at home and not secured … so I would hold onto them for a while.
I don’t know when or how he’s going to be released, because there was some mention made of a possible 72-hour hold for evaluation. Every time nothing happens after 72 hours. He’s been through this before.
Since he’s been in this ‘present state’ mentally (from what I can see and knowing him for about five years) … in the last couple of months and getting worse. I’m thinking that it’s not a good situation for him to have those guns right now. But, they are legal and he did everything necessary, legally, to get them. So, I can't hold onto them indefinitely, and I wouldn’t want to, anyway. The apartment he’s in was something that his VA Social Worker got him, so he wouldn’t end up homeless and on the street, but since he’s been in this ‘mental state’ recently, he’s not following through with what the apartment requires and it’s possible he could be evicted soon (it’s not there yet, though).
I was thinking that this kind of thing is a sort-of ‘perfect storm’ for a shoot-out with apartment people or the police, if they come to evict him (if it comes to that). He’s sees what is possibly happening with the apartment as simply ‘government persecution’ and them being ‘out to get him’.
To tell you the truth, I didn’t know it would be possible for someone to be in that condition and get a concealed carry permit and purchase a weapon. His medical condition isn’t just recent. According to his father, it’s a long-standing thing and has been a diagnosis of over ten years.
SO … I guess the question is … how does one reconcile the Second Amendment, in a situation like I’ve seen directly here, with the questionable situation of whether someone should have their hands on a weapon. I can just see me answering questions about the fact that I know all this stuff and nothing was done about it to prevent a shooting or people getting killed. That wouldn’t be good.
I could simply say that everything was done legally (and I know for sure that it was), that’s it’s not my business and that I shouldn’t get involved and just leave it at that. But, then again … I wouldn’t be too happy if a shooting happened, other people got killed or he got killed.
They shouldn’t be allowed to carry if they’re locked up...just make sure that they are.
Someone that is a risk to themselves or others shouldn’t have guns around. Most direct is private intervention, else left with state. Worst is if no one does something and later someone is hurt for the inaction.
Before you deprive one of constitutional rights, a court must determine incapacity and appoint a guardian. There are some state statutes that remove guns on judicial hearing but they are unconstitutional. Seek competent paid legal advice or risk a civil rights law suits, You are not a judge or jury and he is allowed to have counsel appointed if he cannot afford one but you are not. You have no liability to third parties unless you negligently give access to your gun. Obtain counsel .
If a person is too dangerous to be allowed a gun, then he’s too dangerous to be loose on the street.
He can kill with a knife, or a container of gasoline. Do you think he’s harmless without a gun?
As it stands now ... it’s an ‘ordinary’ hospital stay, and a discussion is being done as to whether there should be a 72-hour hold for evaluation (that’s not been done, and it might not be done). So, there is no “danger to themselves” or others, officially or medically speaking, at the moment, and there may never be that determination.
But, knowing that this has been done before and that he has always been released from a 72-hour hold, that means when he does get released ... “that” is an official determination that he is not a danger to himself or others.
My ‘unofficial opinion’ is that from what I see ... there is definitely trouble coming and perhaps a shooting ... but that’s just me ... not the medical and psychiatric people. SO ... there’s my quandary.
Did you talk to his father?
PTSD is unprocessed memories, and can be permanently cured.
Schizophrenia is a biological imbalance.
Comparing the two is like comparing a broken arm with an amputated arm in some respects.
What does his father think? I would give him the guns if he is a responsible person.
My cousin went through this and is fine today. He had to move to Boston to find a good VA doctor who properly diagnosed and treated his problem. I have spent time there with him and he is a pleasure to be around.
It took him three years to find the right doctor and he almost died in that time.
Just don’t give up trying to find the right help. It’s out there.
I realize that's step 2, but it could be offered as a solution in asking the friend to consider letting go until he's more stable.
It isn't "taking".
Just know that with the paranoia, you may be perceived as part of his "problem", just for suggesting that step.
The diagnosis is simply something that was written down officially, to hand to another doctor, when my friend goes to find another doctor. Since I have been trying to help him find a doctor, I also had to help him organize his medical papers, and that was one important paper we took to other doctors. It contained a list of medications, too.
SO ... I’m stating the condition, not from some personal assessment, but from an official doctor’s notice, meant to inform someone else who would take up his case.
Sorry, “so we” should have been “so they.”
I’ve talked to the mother, father and sister ... and in the last few months, my friend claimed that they were all dead. He had refused to speak to any of them. They didn’t even know he had any weapons ... and to this point ... they only knew (before this episode) what was going on with my friend by talking to me ... because he refused to see them or talk to them.
His father was called by the hospital, so that’s why he showed up there, otherwise, my friend would not have wanted him around.
And the mother, father and sister (mother and father are divorced) are not the problem ... my friend just thinks they are all against him and have tried to help the government ‘put him away’.
Your mistaking accusation, with digagnosed mental issues. Guns should be held by responsible owners that use it as a defensive means of defense, not because Son of Sams dog tells them that they should start popping people.
If he has been adjudicated mentally defective OR involuntarily committed, then he is ineligible to possess firearms under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(4).
Here is the ATF flyer on this:
Yeah, I understand that ‘political ploy’ directed at your enemies, like you point out. The problem I’m having here is that I can see a real mental illness. SO ... is there any situation in which the government should be allowed to remove weapons?
And, applying that here, in the situation I bring up ... of course I’m not going to be doing anything that is illegal or trying to remove weapons in any illegal way. it’s just that I’m concerned and the one who is most directly involved with the person.
I had a colleague, a senior engineer, who became mentally unstable. I remained his friend.
He got to the point where he had uncontrollable anger, and he recognized his own problem. He would have outbursts and I would calm him down.
I talked him into selling all of his collection. I bought all of his reloading gear.
He seemed relieved, a rational man who knew his own limitations.
I’d give the guns to the father.
Unless a judge has adjudicated him mentally unfit, there is no basis for legally denying him his guns, but good fathers often do what’s best for their sons anyway.
I read that, and apparently that does not apply to the 72-hour holds (from the way I read it) unless he is ‘committed’ mandatorily, and not by the person’s own ‘voluntary actions’.
So, from my reading of it, it would not apply here, per the ATF.
I guess I could stop right there and say, “Nope, there’s no problem, so back out of it.”
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