Posted on 04/24/2018 8:16:01 AM PDT by ColdOne
“The problem with using a broadstroke “mental illness” designation means that politicians, unelected bureaucrats, and leftist “medical professionals” are allowed to define it.”
Agreed! The entire problem is made more difficult by reason of the huge cadre of public officials who are Leftists, and are supported by Leftist judges. These people have shown themselves to be quite capable of abandoning the law in order to achieve their Marxist objectives. So here we are, needed a reasoned, legal, process for removing firearms from those who are incapable of using them responsibly.
II. KNOWINGLY SELL, GIVE OR OTHERWISE DISPOSE OF ANY FIREARM OR AMMUNITION TO ANY PERSON WHO FALLS WITHIN ONE OF THE ABOVE CATEGORIES:
18 USC § 922(d). Punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment.
Justice.gov :QUICK REFERENCE TO FEDERAL FIREARMS LAWS
Mental illness refers to a wide range of mental health conditions — disorders that affect your mood, thinking and behavior. Examples of mental illness include depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, eating disorders and addictive behaviors. Many people have mental health concerns from time to time.....Why do you ask?
“Why do you ask?”
.
See QUICK REFERENCE TO
FEDERAL FIREARMS LAWS
He believed he was being stalked by singer Taylor Swift, and that she was on the roof of the local Dairy Queen trying to get away from him.
Shouldn’t the applicable police chief in Broward be similarly charged because he didn’t take steps to keep guns out of the hands of the Parkview shooter?
Rarestia - I totally agree. It is very dangerous indeed to label folks ‘mentally ill.’ Who determines that? Under what circumstances? By what set of rules? Someone might call a Christian, for instance ..., mentally ill because he believes sodomy is wrong. Or is not Politically Correct. Who determines? Whoever is on first.
During Obama’s Abuse of Power, for instance, he could have put out an EO determining that anyone who thought Islam was evil was mentally ill. Look at the psychiatrists - they hold a stealth meeting and determine that homosexuality is no longer aberrant.
Who decides? Who makes the rules? Boy oh boy, I want nothing in the government having anything to do with that.
Even if the father isn’t charged, because there isn’t any law he violated:
1) That was a DAMNED irresponsible thing to do. On a moral level, he is just about as responsible for those 4 deaths as his batshit crazy son.
2) He’ll be facing litigation for a long time to come. He probably ought to just declare bankruptcy right now, because he’s not going to have anything left...if the cases don’t go against him, the legal bills will do the trick. Oh, and he’ll deserve all of this, the @sshole.
You raise interesting objections, but I still contend that there is a subset of society who should not have a firearm, and likewise should not have freedom. (If the person is such a danger to others that he cannot go around armed, then the same person must be confined because he/she will find a way to harm others given the range of weapons available.) For example, they may convince their father to give them their weapons back.
However as you point out, the government can and doubtless will use this power to confine people with whom they disagree — reference a scene from old Soviet Russia where they supposedly committed political opponents to mental institutions to keep them from reaching a supportive audience. So to implement a scheme where some people lose their natural rights to own a weapon, there has to be a judicial hearing that is fair and representative. Does this work? I for one would like a system that brings back our institutions and uses a just method to determine who needs to be in them,.
He should.
Yes, the fater broke the law.
Ultimately, the State of Illinois revoked the son’s licence to own firearms, which is mandatory for gun ownership in Illinois. Police seized the guns. The father begged the police to let him have the son’s guns and promised to not give them back to the son. Then he did.
Giving guns to an Illinois resident who does not have a valid firearms license is a Class 4 felony.
Dad is going to jail for criminally giving guns to his mentallt ill son with revoked firearms license.
This kid was a nut job from the beginning. The police reports filed on him state he walked out of his apartment wearing a pink dress carrying his AR-15 yelling at his neighbors. He went to the public pool in a ping women’s housecoat then swam in his underwear before exposing himself to the lifeguards. But in the liberal mind subtract the AR-15 and there would be nothing wrong with this behavior. That is why we have a mental illness crisis today!!!
“The individual also must certify they have transferred all firearms they own or that are in their custody to another person with a valid FOID card, according to the sheriff’s office.”
That doesn’t indicate that the individual doesn’t still own the firearms.
As a general matter, if one has custody of something someone else owns because that someone else can not have possession under the circumstances, by what right does one keep custody if circumstances change so that the owner can regain possession?
The father may have believed or known the son was nuts, but did he have a legal right to retain custody of the firearms once he or the son moved out of Illinois?
In a different situation, if the son was in the Navy and the father had custody of the son’s firearms because the son couldn’t possess them aboard ship, could the father legally retain custody of what the son owned upon the son’s discharge because the father believed the son to be unfit after his service?
Some of my follow up posts addressed the impetus for that question.
Bottom line: should someone who is anorexic be denied the right to bear arms? How about an alcoholic? Clinical depression is a mental illness insomuch as it usually comes about as an imbalance of chemicals in the brain, but many who are going through a period of sadness or who are down on their luck may self-diagnose and seek counseling despite not being clinically depressed. Should they also be denied the right to bear arms?
Any time the government is in the business of litigating or defining something within the boundaries of actual RIGHTS, tyranny will follow.
“The police specifically told him that he could not return the weapons to his son, and he said he understood and agreed.”
First of all why did they give them to the father? What if the guy didn’t have a parent, what would they do then?
Second of all, the son is so nuts that the parents called the cops on him themselves a couple of times, so why, WHY would the father think his son should have the guns back?
I mean this guy thought Taylor Swift (or some one like that) was stalking him, so he is truly off his rocker.
Now innocent people are dead because you can’t lock crazy people up any more. That needs to change. Sorry.
"Your Honor, this here noozpaper articul says there weren't no law violated."
To legally possess or purchase firearms or ammunition, residents of the state of Illinois are required to have a FOID card.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOID_(firearms)
Note that sickoflibs & Freedom_Is_Not_Free have the right of it.
Illinois is not in the New Jersey Circle of Firearm Hell - but it's in the circle with Taxachusetts.
You can't even possess AMMO in SlaveIllinois without permission from the gruberment.
He was a man in a dress? Well, we're not allowed to criticize them anymore. Didn't you get the memo? Clearly the police did.
Dad had better be able to prove that he drove over the Tennessee border to transfer the guns.
That will clear him of STATE charges.
The Feds, on the other hand - they doan need no steeking badges.
They have a bottomless checkbook.
Curious why you say NJ is the worst. I have a license to own firearms in NJ and it wasn't that hard to get (Well, it sort of was, I had to have three letters from people not related to me to testify about my character) But once I had those the lady at the courthouse said "you left handgun unchecked, you may as well get that too because it's the same process and if you want it later you'll have to do this all over again". That may have been a trap (i.e. if I checked handgun my application would get sent for special processing and never be seen again) but if not it was like they wanted me to get a handgun. I didn't want one so I opted out and just kept it to long barrel firearms.
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