Gun Law NewsJeff Soyer on 12 Mar 2013 04:52 am
NY: VA Won’t Comply With New Gun Law
The federal Department of Veterans Affairs says its mental health professionals won’t comply with a new gun law in New York that requires them to report the names of patients they believe likely to hurt themselves or others.
[ . . . ]
VA spokesman Mark Ballesteros says federal laws protecting veterans’ treatment records take precedence.
I’m not sure how I feel about this. Removing someone’s right to buy a firearm is serious business, but so is someone who might be a danger to society having one.
17 Responses to “NY: VA Won’t Comply With New Gun Law”
Leave a Reply
(Be sure to answer the anti-spam question!)
on 12 Mar 2013 at 6:22 am # Charles
We really need to be careful who has firearms, but I think we can find a way to disclose this info to the right agency/agencies in a way that will not let this information out to the public. Back ground checks that are in place now should be able to use such information.
on 12 Mar 2013 at 7:43 am # Granny Grunch
Yhe whole point of being armed…..if someone should go bonkers and start doing exotic things, there is someone there with the wherewithallto minimize the damage….
on 12 Mar 2013 at 8:12 am # Archer
The problem is, the people that want to decide who ought and ought not have guns don’t have a good track record for logical and rational thought.
I’m also not in favor of pre-crime gun restrictions. Somebody, “may” do something bad today, but then again, they may not. To take away a man’s rights based on what he may do, is criminal itself.
Mental illness is a slippery slope, because what IS mental illness? PTSD, Depression, ADD, thoughts contrary to the ruling party?
on 12 Mar 2013 at 8:19 am # Publicola
Due process is not the word of a cop. Or a shrink. Or a senator. Or a doc.
The problem arises when you think of how many folks in the medical profession assume anyone without government i.d. is a danger to themselves and others if they actually want to possess one of those dastardly gun thingys.
I always thought that if a person was too dangerous to be trusted with a firearm, then they were too dangerous to be in society without direct supervision. So I ain’t a fan of background checks to begin with - they fail to deliver the security they promise in exchange for the imposition upon our Rights. But to let the decision rest on 1 person without any chance of rebuttal by the accused is, to use the legal phrasing, a very bad idea. And to let the decision rest in the hands of a government agency is like giving the drummer the keys to the opium warehouse.
The VA is doing the right thing. For once.
on 12 Mar 2013 at 8:50 am # Rich
The key phrase to me is due process - if a person is going to be adjudge not able to have a firearm there should be a hearing and not like the sham hearings there use to be. Those types of hearings is what got the law changed in the first place.
on 12 Mar 2013 at 8:58 am # Ken Gillingham
The tragedies of the mass murders in recent months is horrible. This has put people into a panic and our legislators mostly just see this as a political opportunity for themselves. The first thoughts people have when you mention a killing is who ever did it was not in their right mind. Then they think this person is a nut job. When you mention Veterans they automatically think PTSD, so this veteran is a nut job. If a veteran did a tour in Iraq or Afghanistan people want to know, and ask you, “Did you see combat, or were you ever ambushed, or did you see people get hit by an IED?” Then they think “PTSD” - a nut job. When actually a very small percentage of veterans fit this category. Just because someone is a veteran or a veteran with some form of PTSD does not make them dangerous to themselves or any one else. Every generation has had a different name for it, i.e. shell shock (WWI), battle fatigue (WWII), flashbacks (Vietnam), and now PTSD.
Of all the recent mass murders in recent days, how many of them were veterans? None that I know of. They all were just people with mental problems. I am proud of the VA for not caving in and sticking to their principles and protecting our veterans from these witch hunts.
on 12 Mar 2013 at 9:29 am # Archer
Pub,
It appears the VA is doing the right thing, but I’m afraid this is more likely political wrangling between state and federal jurisdictions.
“No, WE have the right to dictate, not YOU.”
on 12 Mar 2013 at 9:32 am # comatus
Excellent points, Ken. You left out a “definition”: after the Civil War, it was called “nostalgia.” That one gave me something to think about. We don’t understand consciousness now any better than Stephen Crane did, despite what we do to rats in a lab.
Back when The Profession was somewhat less politicized, and considered more trustworthy, they busied themselves with pre-frontal lobotomies, megadoses of drugs that would make your hair stand on end if you found a trace in the water today, and involuntary commitments for embarrassing relatives. I’m just not seeing what the psych industry has done in 50 years to make itself more credible as the arbiter of our liberties.
I lived through a time when the ability to bite down hard and endure combat (or its moral equivalents) was insisted upon as the norm. More grownup men were combat veterans than not. Were some of them kooks, and many of them extreme? You betcha. Is our new ideal consciousness, in which the putative norm is to recoil in horror from even the image or concept of weapons or conflict, more attuned to reality? With a different jury, another shrink, or an updated DSM, that behavior would be “diagnosable.”
on 12 Mar 2013 at 11:46 am # Sigivald
If a mental health professional seriously believes that a patient is an imminent, likely danger to themselves or others, it seems like they have a professional (and moral) obligation to report that, already.
But likewise, as Rich says, if there’s going to be any denial of rights on the basis of that report, there needs to be a real judicial hearing, with representation for the affected party - provided free of charge if necessary, before anything happens.
(Yes, “they could define anything to be insanity”, or “claim that anyone’s a danger to others because gun!” … and equally “the courts could just decide you have no rights ever!”.
The fact that a system could someday be rigged doesn’t change the base calculus - because if it does, we’re essentially left with anarchy, because we’d have to avoid all systems, as all systems could be rigged with a sufficient change in underlying public opinion to allow it.
Wait until someone tries to actually rig it, and fight against that. Make sure public opinion never gets to the point of letting them win like that.
Because the alternative, “make sure that no psychiatrist can ever report someone as Fucking Crazy And About To Murder A Dozen People”, will horribly backfire the first time someone actually goes homicidally insane and the psychiatrist says “hey, I saw this coming months ago, but the law wouldn’t LET ME tell anyone”.
Public opinion reaction to that will be far more destructive of gun rights and mental health privacy than the suggestion above.)
on 12 Mar 2013 at 12:22 pm # dustydog
The precedent is mandatory reporting for sexually transmitted diseases. Girl comes into the free clinic, she gets reported to the county. The county tries to get her to report her partners. We try to inform them, get them to come in for screening and treatment (if we can treat the disease) and get a list of their partners. Rinse and repeat. Does not work well.
We also have mandatory reporting (in most states) for child abuse and elder abuse.
One way to handle the mental health issue for RKBA would be to require everyone to provide the names of 2 adults who vouch for them and are legally responsible if their friend did something illegal with their gun. Anyone without 2 friends would be deemed too much of a risk. In colonial times, folks generally didn’t live alone. The local community decided who couldn’t be trusted with a gun. A ‘well regulated milita’ was your friends, family and neighbors.
The best way to make sure Mom or Granddad have their guns locked up where schizo-teen can’t get them is to make two other private citizens, of their choosing, responsible too. We don’t need the government coming into people’s homes; we can rely upon private citizens to help, protect, and warn each other.
on 12 Mar 2013 at 12:41 pm # Archer
In a rational world, due process would be great. In our world where mental illness will be construed to mean any number of excuses to disarm, I’m very hesitant to jump on a bandwagon requiring further restrictions.
Statistically, gun crime attributable to mental illness, per capita, is miniscule. Drunk driving causes far more injury or death, but we don’t see a national movement to address this.
It aint about mental illness.
It aint about gun control.
Its about control.
on 12 Mar 2013 at 1:44 pm # Archer
A timely article.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-12/california-seizes-guns-as-owners-lose-right-to-bear-arms.html?cmpid=yhoo
on 12 Mar 2013 at 2:08 pm # comatus
In colonial times, people didn’t live alone because witches don’t float. How about we have a special jury that meets at the center of town every day. Any citizen who isn’t busy can be on it. You present your case for armed sanity, and they drop white balls into a krater. One black ball, and you’re out. All part of the history, and perhaps the future, of jurisprudence. Plato talked about this, you know.
All doctors already have a responsibility to report dangerous cases. In certain specialties and certain dangers, there is a legally-defined responsibility. When you’re done laughing, we’ll discuss lawyers all being officers of the court. As my old boss used to say, if you want to impress them, pop one.
They are not doing that, and it’s not because they’re short-staffed and too busy. Someone pulling their strings, poor babes in the woods that they are, is using them in a political power play, and they think they’re Taking a Brave Stand. The fact that it’s against the rest of us? Your choice:(1) a feature not a bug, or (2) they didn’t cover that in med school. Pretty cynical either way.
In the 20th century we innovated special justice for a lot of things. Special family courts, divorce courts, labor courts, civil rights courts, war crimes tribunals. The only one I’ve heard anything good about is Small Claims, and this is no small claim. Maybe we should put the Church in charge, or the Post Office. Both enjoy more public faith than doctors or courts.
on 12 Mar 2013 at 2:19 pm # Archer
Coma, you lost me after witches, but I do like the idea of Post Office Authoritarianism - maybe it would only be a 5 day tyranny (no holidays either!), and maybe sometimes they would lose your judgment, or you wouldn’t get it for 40 years. ; )
on 12 Mar 2013 at 4:36 pm # MingoV
I’m a physician who worked at a VA medical center for four years.
There are a number of mistakes among the comments. Here’s the truth:
1. In almost every state, clinicians are required to report a person who has a high probability of harming someone else.
2. In most states, clinicians are required to report a person who has a high probability of committing suicide.
A clinician’s duty to make such reports is NOT negated when working for the Veterans Administration, though the reporting process is different.
Most physicians will not report unless there is little doubt about the patient’s frame of mind.
Each state, and sometimes each county or city, has different procedures for receiving and handling such reports. Unfortunately, some of those procedures are heavy-handed and result in police and psych hospital attendants arriving at a persons home, restraining him, and hauling him off to a psych ward. Police often confiscate (without a warrant) all weapons (or potential weapons) in the person’s home.
The reporting systems are not ideal, but it’s not ideal to allow a mentally ill person to murder someone.
on 13 Mar 2013 at 7:57 am # comatus
For some reason, these reportees retain the right to vote and run for high office. If you can’t trust a person to carry a gun, why would you trust him to carry The Suitcase?
Color me … Draconian. Let’s add even more restrictions, until people start to notice. Reproductive rights: we haven’t touched on that one for a while. Four generations of imbeciles? Only if they’re disarmed.
on 13 Mar 2013 at 4:50 pm # mark
Agreeing that the numbers of spree shooting victims is minuscule when compared to the daily violence of gangs / drug dealers/ users.
The unspoken common factor in most of the recent spate of spree shootings is the history of psychotropic drug use.