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Posted on 08/14/2007 12:10:54 PM PDT by neverdem
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| Find this article at: http://www.shotgunnews.com/cramer |
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So there's no authority to disarm convicted murderers? On what basis do they disarm people who are in jail or prison?
While in jail, they are disarmed. Once freed, they should have the right to be armed in self defense, and to defend our free republic -- as per the 2nd.
All levels of gov't have a very questionable authority to adjudicate who is mentally defective, -- particularly when the objective is to disarm 'the people' protected by the 2nd.
Sorry, but even at the time of the Revolution, governments had the authority to determine that a person was mentally ill and lock them up if dangerous.
Exactly my point. Lock them up if dangerous, -- and once freed, they should have the right to be armed in self defense, and/or to defend our free republic -- just as the the 2nd specifies.
And the primary objective of determining that someone is mentally ill is not to disarm them.
Dream on that this has not become a primary goal of the Brady bunch crowd. To them 'crazy people' want guns, -- and crazy people can be denied that right.. -- Catch 22.
I will agree that when the Framers wrote the Second Amendment, these issues tended not to come up. Partly this was because psychosis was much rarer in early America than it is today. Psychosis rates, for example, increased about 9x from 1880-1980.
Good grief; - I'd sure like to see the proof of that remarkable bit of info.
E. Fuller Torrey and Judy Miller, The Invisible Plague: The Rise of Mental Illness from 1750 to the Present (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2001).
The authors opinion is proof of a 'plague' and justifies gun controls? - Get real.
Are you actually claiming that small towns in America used a power [majority rule?] to disarm mental defectives? Again, I'd sure like to see the proof of that remarkable bit of info. Got any?
Actually, what I was claiming was that people that were clearly a bit dangerous had a hard time buying a gun. If you lived in a town of 250 people, and Old Joe was widely recognized as paranoid schizophrenia--blathering on about voices telling him to do things--would you sell him a gun? Would anyone in town do so?
Given the prevelence of guns, old joe probably had one long before he became paranoid. Do you claim a community power to disarm him?
Partly this is because the procedures in effect for hospitalization of the mentally ill were much more informal in those days than they are now.
Yep, and they should stay that way, imho.
Then how do you deal with the problem of psychotics with weapons? Wait until they go on a rampage and kill someone?
Under our constitutional system [as written] we have to wait for a person to exhibit criminal behavior before we jail them and deprive them of their rights.
Liberals and socialists have been arguing against our Constitutional rights for years. -- They want the power to adjudicate criminality, -- to prohibit behavior [and dangerous objects] before they become a 'problem for society'.
You've bought into this mindset, imo, and history proves it doesn't work.
So there's no authority to disarm convicted murderers? On what basis do they disarm people who are in jail or prison?
While in jail, they are disarmed. Once freed, they should have the right to be armed in self defense, and to defend our free republic -- as per the 2nd.
Why is it okay to disarm them in jail?
All levels of gov't have a very questionable authority to adjudicate who is mentally defective, -- particularly when the objective is to disarm 'the people' protected by the 2nd.
Sorry, but even at the time of the Revolution, governments had the authority to determine that a person was mentally ill and lock them up if dangerous.
Exactly my point. Lock them up if dangerous, -- and once freed, they should have the right to be armed in self defense, and/or to defend our free republic -- just as the the 2nd specifies.
I would prefer that those who are dangerously mentally ill should be hospitalized. For a variety of bad reasons, the law does not currently allow this. What's the alternative?
And the primary objective of determining that someone is mentally ill is not to disarm them.
Dream on that this has not become a primary goal of the Brady bunch crowd. To them 'crazy people' want guns, -- and crazy people can be denied that right.. -- Catch 22.
The adjudications of mental illness date back centuries before the Brady bunch ever appeared. You are right to be concerned that such adjudications can be misused, but to suggest that the primary purpose of mental illness commitments is to disarm people is false.
E. Fuller Torrey and Judy Miller, The Invisible Plague: The Rise of Mental Illness from 1750 to the Present (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2001).
The authors opinion is proof of a 'plague' and justifies gun controls? - Get real.
The authors present a pretty persuasive body of evidence of rising psychosis rates over the period in question, and in several different nations. They rely on not just incarceration records, but a variety of censuses that sought to count every psychotic, whether hospitalized or not. Increased alcohol and drug abuse have been shown to increase psychosis rates; the Lancet, of all places, recently published a paper that showed about a 40% increase in psychosis among heavy pot smokers--and the the Lancet reversed a long-standing editorial position in favor of legalization of marijuana because of it. Urbanization has also been linked to increase psychosis rates as well.
The book above doesn't even mention gun control.
Actually, what I was claiming was that people that were clearly a bit dangerous had a hard time buying a gun. If you lived in a town of 250 people, and Old Joe was widely recognized as paranoid schizophrenia--blathering on about voices telling him to do things--would you sell him a gun? Would anyone in town do so?
Given the prevelence of guns, old joe probably had one long before he became paranoid. Do you claim a community power to disarm him?
He might have had a gun--and he might not have. Gun ownership was common but not universal in the Colonial period, and by the 18th century, especially among the very poorest whites back from the frontier, you do start to see evidence that at least some free people don't own guns. My book Armed America: The Remarkable Story of How and Why Guns Became as American as Apple Pie (Nelson Current, 2007), examines this question.
And yes, Colonial governments did all sorts of things in the interests of the community. They forced people to own guns; they forced people to carry guns; in times of crisis, they confiscated guns from private owners to arm members of the militia that weren't armed; during the American Revolution, state and local governments disarmed people who weren't politically trustworthy. My book examines these statutes and how they were used in detail.
Then how do you deal with the problem of psychotics with weapons? Wait until they go on a rampage and kill someone?
Under our constitutional system [as written] we have to wait for a person to exhibit criminal behavior before we jail them and deprive them of their rights.
You are mistaken. From Colonial times through the Revolution, the drafting of the Constitution, and into the 1950s, persons could be jailed for a variety of reasons, including mental illness or carrying a contagious disease.
There are a lot of people who have a mistaken belief that early America was libertarian. The federal government was, to the extent that its powers were limited, but the state governments were not. You need to spend some time reading the statutes and newspapers of the period. It is not what you think.
Liberals and socialists have been arguing against our Constitutional rights for years. -- They want the power to adjudicate criminality, -- to prohibit behavior [and dangerous objects] before they become a 'problem for society'.
This is not a new concept, and you can find similar laws throughout American history. State laws regulating the sale of alcohol appear in the Colonial and early Republic periods because alcohol abuse was a "problem for society." Laws regulating sexual conduct appear in the Colonial period, and remain commonly accepted as proper actions of government into the 1960s.
You've bought into this mindset, imo, and history proves it doesn't work.
Your argument would be stronger if you knew some of the history involved. You clearly have a libertarian understanding of American history--but America's history isn't libertarian.
“At least 28 states either intentionally, because of a shortage of money, or by bureaucratic incompetence, fail to turn over mental illness commitment information to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check system.”
Some of the states have laws that prevent medical information being transferred for any reason other than for medical need. I would think that this would also violate HIPAA.
This is nothing more than a backdoor attempt to disarm us.
Sorry, but there is no ajudication when a "board, commission or other lawful authority" determins you are "marked subnormal intelligence, or mental illness, incompetency, condition, or disease." That alone should cause a person to be against the bill, not to mention that it expands the Brady law (which was considered gun control).
Also the law does not define what those are except the vague/grey wording. Some "board, commission or other lawful authority" determin that being a Christian is a mental illness or that gun ownership is a disease.
Huh? Different states have somewhat different procedures (hence the statute uses "board, commission or other lawful authority") for determining that a person is incompetent, but these are all subject to the due process requirements of an impartial decision maker, the right to notice, the right to cross-examine witnesses, etc.
Also the law does not define what those are except the vague/grey wording. Some "board, commission or other lawful authority" determin that being a Christian is a mental illness or that gun ownership is a disease.
If we have reached the point where this starts to happen, then it doesn't much matter what the laws are, does it?
How do you figure that? This doesn't change the legal definition of firearms disability at all--except to restore the rights of PTSD suffering veterans improperly disarmed by the Clinton Administration, and to provide a mechanism for restoring firearms rights under state laws--something that does not exist today.
HR 2640 doesn't require them to hand over the information, either. It does provide improved funding for their backgrounc check systems for those who are willing to do so.
Thanks for your comments, and thank you for clarifying the issue. I never really expected a parade, but neither did I expect what did happen.
I’d do it all again.
Then they should not be walking around in public. If they are a risk to the public to own a firearm, they are a risk to the public. If they are walking around in public, they can get their hands on a firearm (don’t have to do background checks) and it would be no different than if they weren’t added to the database. Just like criminals, if they want a gun bad enough they will get one.
I am not happy about the current situation. It is bad for the general public, and bad for many of the mentally ill. The rate of Americans freezing to death (largely a problem of the homeless mentally ill) more than doubled from 1974 to 1984 because of deinstitutionatlization. But this is the hand we have in front of us, and we can either play this hand or fold.
Mentally ill persons are a bit different from criminals in one rather important way. At least some psychotics are so scary that no one will sell them a gun, out of fear of being a victim.
This guy was clearly mentally ill--very confused, disconnected thinking, as is symptomatic of schizophrenia. He had this tale of governmental oppression, how his kids had been taken away from him, compared it to Waco, etc.
Then he showed me the paperwork--and the fact that he showed me this paperwork without trying to explain the claims in it was a pretty good indication that he was mentally ill.
He had two children. His wife had been committed for physical abuse of the kids. His children had been taken away from him because he was showing them pornographic movies and molesting them.
So why was this guy out on the streets? Why was he not locked up in prison? The children were 4 and 6. My guess is that a prosecutor had looked at the trauma of putting these children on the stand, and concluded that it would have been hard to get a conviction. It was simpler just to have the courts permanently terminate his parental rights. (This is not something that courts do lightly.)
Should this guy have been out wandering the streets? No. But our current legal system doesn't give us a lot of good alternatives.
While in jail, they are disarmed. Once freed, they should have the right to be armed in self defense, and to defend our free republic -- as per the 2nd.
Why is it okay to disarm them in jail?
Desperate question? -- If armed they could escape; obviously.
All levels of gov't have a very questionable authority to adjudicate who is mentally defective, -- particularly when the objective is to disarm 'the people' protected by the 2nd.
Sorry, but even at the time of the Revolution, governments had the authority to determine that a person was mentally ill and lock them up if dangerous.
Exactly my point. Lock them up if dangerous, -- and once freed, they should have the right to be armed in self defense, and/or to defend our free republic -- just as the the 2nd specifies.
-- the primary objective of determining that someone is mentally ill is not to disarm them.
Dream on that this has not become a primary goal of the Brady bunch crowd. To them 'crazy people' want guns, -- and crazy people can be denied that right.. -- Catch 22.
The adjudications of mental illness date back centuries before the Brady bunch ever appeared.
Yep. -- And we changed such adjudication standards with our Constitution.
You are right to be concerned that such adjudications can be misused, but to suggest that the primary purpose of mental illness commitments is to disarm people is false.
It is not 'false' to realize that the Brady bunch are using this theory to disarm people.
E. Fuller Torrey and Judy Miller, The Invisible Plague: The Rise of Mental Illness from 1750 to the Present (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2001).
The authors opinion is proof of a 'plague' and justifies gun controls? - Get real.
The authors present a pretty persuasive body of evidence of rising psychosis rates over the period in question, and in several different nations. They rely on not just incarceration records, but a variety of censuses that sought to count every psychotic, whether hospitalized or not. Increased alcohol and drug abuse have been shown to increase psychosis rates;
Ah yes, - the prohibitionist mindset.
I've seen statistics that show alcohol and drug 'abuse' were considerably higher in the 1800's, -- then now. -- Perhaps self medication worked, and prohibition is responsible for psychosis rates?
the Lancet, of all places, recently published a paper that showed about a 40% increase in psychosis among heavy pot smokers--and the the Lancet reversed a long-standing editorial position in favor of legalization of marijuana because of it. Urbanization has also been linked to increase psychosis rates as well. The book above doesn't even mention gun control.
It doesn't need to. Prohibition is a socialistic disease.
Drugs/guns/booze, -- they're in favor of prohibiting most anything or any behavior.
Actually, what I was claiming was that people that were clearly a bit dangerous had a hard time buying a gun. If you lived in a town of 250 people, and Old Joe was widely recognized as paranoid schizophrenia--blathering on about voices telling him to do things--would you sell him a gun? Would anyone in town do so?
Given the prevalence of guns, old joe probably had one long before he became paranoid. Do you claim a community power to disarm him?
He might have had a gun--and he might not have. Gun ownership was common but not universal in the Colonial period, --
And we fought a revolution to make it a constitutional right.
-- and by the 18th century, especially among the very poorest whites back from the frontier, you do start to see evidence that at least some free people don't own guns. My book Armed America: The Remarkable Story of How and Why Guns Became as American as Apple Pie (Nelson Current, 2007), examines this question. And yes, Colonial governments did all sorts of things in the interests of the community. They forced people to own guns; they forced people to carry guns; in times of crisis, they confiscated guns from private owners to arm members of the militia that weren't armed;
Sure, colonial governments did all sorts of things in the interests of the community. -- And we ended that type of undelegated power with our Constitution.
during the American Revolution, state and local governments disarmed people who weren't politically trustworthy. My book examines these statutes and how they were used in detail.
And you agree that they had and still have a power to disarm?
Then how do you deal with the problem of psychotics with weapons? Wait until they go on a rampage and kill someone?
Under our constitutional system [as written] we have to wait for a person to exhibit criminal behavior before we jail them and deprive them of their rights.
You are mistaken. From Colonial times through the Revolution, the drafting of the Constitution, and into the 1950s, persons could be jailed for a variety of reasons, including mental illness or carrying a contagious disease.
No mistake. You need to read our Constitution from the standpoint that its principle objective is to protect our rights to life, liberty or property.
There are a lot of people who have a mistaken belief that early America was libertarian.
Call it what you will, the Constitutions emphasis on protecting individual liberty is quite clear.
The federal government was, to the extent that its powers were limited, but the state governments were not.
Reread the 10th. - It clearly says that States are constitutionally prohibited [limited] in powers. - Then read the 14th. - Same thing.
You need to spend some time reading the statutes and newspapers of the period. It is not what you think.
You need to read the Constitution to understand its principles. It is not what you think.
Liberals and socialists have been arguing against our Constitutional rights for years. -- They want the power to adjudicate criminality, -- to prohibit behavior [and dangerous objects] before they become a 'problem for society'.
This is not a new concept, and you can find similar laws throughout American history. State laws regulating the sale of alcohol appear in the Colonial and early Republic periods because alcohol abuse was a "problem for society." Laws regulating sexual conduct appear in the Colonial period, and remain commonly accepted as proper actions of government into the 1960s.
Yep, State and local governments have routinely infringed on our basic rights under the socialistic/statist theory that the Bill of Rights only applied to Congress.
You've bought into this mindset, imo, and history proves it doesn't work.
Your argument would be stronger if you knew some of the history involved.
I'll match my knowledge of history with yours any day.
You clearly have a libertarian understanding of American history--but America's history isn't libertarian.
You clearly think that calling me a 'libertarian' discredits my facts regarding our Constitution. Get a new line.
Perhaps I misread the article.
I thought that they were trying to force doctors to hand over mental health records to the govt so they could deny firearms to anyone deemed “mentally Ill”
No. It strongly encourages the states to hand over records of those who have been found mentally incompetent in due process conformant proceedings.
Here's the text of the 10th Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Powers that are not explicitly given to the federal government (and it wasn't a long list), and that were not explicitly prohibited to the states (and that was an even shorter list), are reserved to the States, or to the people. Had they left out "are reserved to the States" you might be able to make your claim. But "reserved to the States" is pretty darn clear.
The Fourteenth Amendment also doesn't say what you think. The provision that you are thinking of says:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
This isn't a complete prohibition on state action that you want to imagine. It says that "privileges and immunities" are protected from state action. Proponents of the 14th Amendment intended this to impose the Bill of Rights (including an individual right to keep and bear arms) onto the states.
The "due process of law" provision does not prohibit the states from regulatory actions, either sensible or stupid, but simply requires that when they do so, they give you the benefit of hearings, at least a pretense of impartiality, notice, etc.
The "equal protection" provision was to guarantee that blacks and Republicans in the South didn't get injured by unequal application of the laws. This isn't a ban on the states regulating actions--only requiring that if the laws made distinctions, they could not be arbitrary.
I'll match my knowledge of history with yours any day.
My master's degree is in history. I've read thousands of pages of newspapers of the Colonial, Revolutionary, and early Republic period. I've read hundreds of books of the time. Your statements about the Constitution show a fundamental ignorance of the basic materials in question.
This is not a new concept, and you can find similar laws throughout American history. State laws regulating the sale of alcohol appear in the Colonial and early Republic periods because alcohol abuse was a "problem for society."
Laws regulating sexual conduct appear in the Colonial period, and remain commonly accepted as proper actions of government into the 1960s.
Yep, State and local governments have routinely infringed on our basic rights under the socialistic/statist theory that the Bill of Rights only applied to Congress.
You've bought into this mindset, imo, and history proves it doesn't work.
Your argument would be stronger if you knew some of the history involved.
I'll match my knowledge of history with yours any day.
My master's degree is in history.
Big deal. Hundreds of thousands have 'Mastered in History'. Your mastery of our Constitution is sorely lacking, - as we see from your inept arguments.
I've read thousands of pages of newspapers of the Colonial, Revolutionary, and early Republic period. I've read hundreds of books of the time. Your statements about the Constitution show a fundamental ignorance of the basic materials in question.
You clearly have a libertarian understanding of American history--but America's history isn't libertarian.
You clearly think that calling me fundamentally ignorant and a 'libertarian' somehow discredits my facts regarding our Constitution. Get a new line.
Reread the 10th. - It clearly says that States are constitutionally prohibited [limited] in powers. - Then read the 14th. - Same thing.
Here's the text of the 10th Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Powers that are not explicitly given to the federal government (and it wasn't a long list), and that were not explicitly prohibited to the states (and that was an even shorter list), --
Do you deny that list included our Bill of Rights?
-- are reserved to the States, or to the people. Had they left out "are reserved to the States" you might be able to make your claim. But "reserved to the States" is pretty darn clear.
So is Article VI, which also clearly says that officials and "Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary, notwithstanding. --"
States have powers, - limited by the supremacy of the US Constitution. --- The 2nd is a complete prohibition on state actions infringing on our right to own and carry arms.
The Fourteenth Amendment also doesn't say what you think. The provision that you are thinking of says:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
This isn't a complete prohibition on state action that you want to imagine.
You are simply imagining it isn't. Guns are property. -- Some States are prohibiting ownership of assault weapons. In effect, you are arguing that they have that power.
It says that "privileges and immunities" are protected from state action. Proponents of the 14th Amendment intended this to impose the Bill of Rights (including an individual right to keep and bear arms) onto the states. The "due process of law" provision does not prohibit the states from regulatory actions, --
It prohibits them from infringements.
-- either sensible or stupid, but simply requires that when they do so, they give you the benefit of hearings, at least a pretense of impartiality, notice, etc.
There you go. You admit such laws are stupid [infringements] yet you would allow them. Go figure that for fundamental ignorance.
The "equal protection" provision was to guarantee that blacks and Republicans in the South didn't get injured by unequal application of the laws. This isn't a ban on the states regulating actions--only requiring that if the laws made distinctions, they could not be arbitrary.
The 14th's overall thrust was and is to stop States from making arbitrary 'laws' banning arms, property, life and liberty. Your knowledge of the 14ths history is pathetic.
So your saying that we should expand an unConstitutional law? Justifying it by stating “our current legal system doesn’t give us a lot of good alternatives” is as bad as “for the children”. It does nothing to solve the problem for the mentally ill person, for gun owners or most importantly for the Constitution. Why did I include the Constitution, because this just enforces the notion that gun control laws are Constitutional.
Only if they are basing it on currently defined mental illnesses. There is no due process or adjudication during the defining of new mental illnesses.
Here is the way to fix these problems, make it easier for people to get guns and allow them to carry (concealed or otherwise). Spend the money currently spent to restrict people’s ownership and carrying on encouraging ownership and carrying. This would provide the ultimate cure for any mentally ill or criminal that would harm people. This bill will have as much impact on gun crime as the “Assault Weapon” (aka scary looking black military style rifles) Ban did.
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