On Thu, 18 Apr 2013 10:36:42 -0500, Richard
wrote:
Ok, let's try this again. Without the 3 
Hi Ed,
I'm a disabled vet. 100% permanent and total.
PTSD, burns, shrapnel, and some bones.
Some people would claim that to be a serious mental illness.
Does it make me dangerous?
PTSD covers a lot of symptoms and reactions. If you hallucinate and
experience hyperarousal or hyperanxiety at the same time, you can be
as dangerous as a hand grenade without a pin.
I assume you don't have those symptoms, because they're pretty rare
and you don't act like you have a bad case of anxiety. But I'm not one
who could judge it, anyway.
Here's the rub: Gun owners talk about "improving our mental health
system," and often about how liberals let the "crazies" out of mental
institutions, causing our mass-murder problem; then they turn around
and talk about how unreliable psychologists are at determining who's
dangerous; and, finally, they bring up the vets who have been treated
for mental health issues, and how unfair it is to keep them from
having guns. After all, they're vets. Right?
So where does that leave us? IMO, in an impossible position. I don't
have a clue about the effectiveness of it. I'm all for "improving"
mental health although I have little idea about how it should be, or
could be, improved. I don't think there's a lot of evidence that
suggests it would make a difference as far as gun safety goes.
Probably they could stop some suicides, but most gun nutz brush them
off as meaningless, anyway. As for the NRA, it looks like a carefully
crafted distraction to take the pressure off of AR and magazine bans.
It's a feel-good pitch with no substance. Of course, the liberal
anti-gun crowd had to adopt it as well, to keep it from becoming a
divisive issue that could be used against them. It plays well with
almost everyone.
Do you have any suggestions on that front?
As soon as that rating came in, FAA refused to renew my flight physical.
Can't have crazy people flying around now, can we?
Nor Type I diabetics, it seems.
But I have never been adjudicated as a danger to myself or others.
EVER.
Well, then, you should be in the clear. I don't think there's much
support for tightening the criteria. The mainstream pitch, from both
sides, is to "improve" treatment.
Toomey said. "The mentally ill should not have guns.
I don't know anyone who disagrees with that premise."
Neither do I. But everyone has a different idea of what constitutes
mental illness.
But who calls that tune?
If private shrinks will be able to add patients names into a federal
database of the mentally ill - without due process - you will be at
their mercy.
Wayne and the NRA aren't helping your cause. Here's Wayne:
“I think we can agree that our mental health system is broken. We need
to look at the full range of mental health issues, from early
detection treatment, to civil commitment laws, to privacy laws that
needlessly prevent mental health records from being included from the
national list.” [Jan. 30th]
There's just too much privacy, says Wayne LaPier
“23 states are still putting only a small number of records into the
system and a lot of states are putting none. So when they go through
the National Instant Check System and they go to try to screen out one
of those lunatics, the records are not even in the system.” [Dec.
23rd]
So he wants more mental health records in the system, and "privacy
laws" that allow "private shrinks...to add patients names into a
federal database of the mentally ill" sounds like exactly what he has
in mind.
As Red State editor, Erick Erickson says, “Activist mental health
providers will probably be overly aggressive in adding people to the
list. Give it five years in liberal areas and people who believe in the
physical resurrection of Christ will probably get automatic entry onto
the list.”
Overblown paranoia, in all likelihood. But it sounds like Erickson is
worried about the wrong end of the political spectrum. See above.
And as for veterans? Toomey-Manchin-Schumer reinforces the proposition
that bureaucrats in the Department of Veterans Affairs can take away
veterans' rights without any due process. If a veteran has $30,000 to
spend getting back the rights Toomey-Manchin-Schumer wrongly took from
him, the sell-out creates yet another redundant money-trap for
restoration of rights that shouldn't have been taken away in the first
place.
Does that answer the question?
It does, but not in the way I expected, nor, probably, in the way you
intended. I've thought from the start that the whole issue was a big
red herring thrown up to keep guns out of the debate. I also think it
has succeeded to some extent.
Underneath the political maneuvering is a genuine issue -- Lanza,
Holmes, and Loughner are the prime evidence of it -- that I feel we
have little chance of solving. The mental-health issue, and the people
who could conceivably be caught in the middle of it, like you, are
going to be the ping-pong balls.
It doesn't help that the unmasked, honest conclusion of the NRA's and
the gun-nutz pitch is that don't have to control guns; we have to
control people.
Good luck.
How are background checks interfering with your ability to protect
your life and that of your family??
Nothing to do with guns or gun laws interferes with my ability to
protect my life or that of my family.
--
Ed Huntress