US legal precedent allows for certain Constitutional rights to be limited, as an example you can't yell fire in a crowded theatre. To me at least, it seems that any attempt to limit 2nd amendment rights is met with the most opposition. I guess the NRA has more lobbying power than any 1st amendment group.
The stats do concern me about suicide and firearms, however there are huge HIPAA issues with my idea. And huge potential for abuse. In this case, I think I'd trust the therapist/psychiatrist recommendation over letting a person potentially harm themselves with a firearm after speaking to someone. To be clear, I would be included under this umbrella and do not consider this an intrusion on my civiil liberties.
The issue with mental health affecting gun ownership is its a slippery slope. Also, a lot of mental health issues are fluid. I've been treated for depression before, but I am largely over it and my therapist and I agreed I no longer needed treatment. How long before I could own a gun? Would someone come to my house and remove the guns I already owned? What about "mental illnesses" like homosexuality? I was lucky that I didn't have access to a gun during that time, but I don't think restricting access to something like that is going to have a positive impact. Alternatively, what psychologist would feel comfortable with that responsibility? I would imagine few are chomping at the bit to navigate that minefield. Finally, with limited access to mental health in this country (I mean, SERIOUSLY) the people most likely to benefit from this type of oversight are the least likely to have access to or seek treatment. The last thing we need is a disincentive for mental health care.
I don't mind if you guys allow Mr Turnip to become your president but now he's made our Prime Minister Mr Trumble cry. That's not nice. I'm going to have to get a twatter account and send someone a twat to express my disquiet.
Thats what conversion therapy is for. Go into therapy, pray the gay away, and once you get a little certificate of completion, you can have a gun.
So has anyone bothered to read the Obama directive and the Social Security rules, or are we having another discussion over conjecture? You can read the full text here: SSA Rules Warning: It's very boring. Snopes has a pretty good synopsis which cuts through some of the misinformation from both sides: http://www.snopes.com/social-security-recipients-barred-from-owning-guns/ The main problem with the rule is the lack of due process and equal protection. Administrators in the SSA make the determination on whether a recipient goes on the list, and the process for removing oneself from the list is unduly complicated. I've pointed out before that if one's name can be on a list to prevent some threat, real or imagined, then before long we will all find our names on a list of some sort. Look at the difficulties American citizens have when their names end up on the no-fly list, and the U.S. government claims that it's for our own good: "The government maintained that disclosing whether somebody is or isn't on a no-fly list would be a national security danger." Source This issue is not whether a crazy old lady can buy a gun tomorrow; it's about who will control the criteria on which any of our rights can be abridged. To be fair, many on the right mischaracterized the rules as prohibiting all SSA recipients from buying guns. There is hysteria on both sides of every argument it seems.
Not looked into this specific rule that want to change but you raise some good issues. On the face of it, it sounds like a more unilateral EO type rule Obama set up? I have reservations about those types of rules as far as citizens redress given the representative nature of or government and also due process rights. The other thing, like the no fly/no buy list that was a semi topic this past election, is that there seems to be no nuance in the selection processes, applying of the rules, or really how they came up with the rules in the first place. These people haven't been deemed a danger to themselves or others (unlike the mentally adjudicated), they simply have a 3rd party handling their finances. Like the no fly list you are laying out a blanket rule, depriving people of their rights, and have no clear way of giving easy redress for the situation. That's why you have the ACLU fighting the no fly list and mental health advocacy groups decrying this because it stigmatizes the mental health services. The line, "you're crazy if you want mentally ill to purchase guns! The fuck!?!" Smacks of trying to score easy political headlines on the subject. A lot more complicated than that. It also feel like it was passed just to have something, anything, pass at the time when emotions were raw and dealing with the tribal nature of the subject. Still this is an issue that the NRA is very weak on. They will only give lip service to the deplorable state of mental health services when it's politically expediant to do so. Ultimately they're so hardline that they'll end up fighting every piece of legislation simply on principle, no matter how realistic the law or the reality of the situation. Like it or not there is a time where the subjects cross as far the mentally ill and their rights to possesing and owning guns. Suicide being the most glaring topic. It's a tough conversation and downanddirty illustrated some of the harder issues that need to be ironed out. The mechanisms in place on the subject are notoriously bureaucratic nightmares. I also think states, particularly California, that have been more progressive in passing new laws of this nature, are more about limiting the right to bear arms itself than any actual safety concern. Much like states that set up onerous medical standards for abortion in the name of safety, the real intention is just eliminating the practice.
This is why I cancelled my NRA membership. They fought tooth and nail, and finally defeated a bill that was actually simple common sense. I wish I could remember what the bill was, but I was furious when I saw they lobbied against it. EDIT: MaKayla's Law
Was anyone here affected by the Bowling Green Massacre? I heard it killed all the people that made Trump's inauguration bigger than Obama's.
My question is: what exactly IS the endgame for the NRA? When will they be happy? Because it seems they won't be happy until any human can access a gun. Giving them to the mentally ill? That seems ridiculous even if it were the plot for an exploitation film. They'd put snubbed-nose pistols in the hands of children if they could pass the legislation.
Trump now wants to roll back rules to prevent corporations from gambling with your retirement. There is literally no good reason for this to happen. A bunch of people who want some semblance of security are going to be out on their asses because they got sweet talked into investing their retirement fund into a can't miss opportunity only their broker knows about. What a load of shit.
The issue isn't a gun fetish, it's that guns are so saturated that it's damned near impossible to prevent access to them without it being a rights violation. In and of itself, a gun is a bizarre object for Americans. Yes, I'm likely to murder myself, others or be a victim of one. But they are also cherished family heirlooms, a security system, a sport, a hobby, a means of feeding yourself and in many ways a culturally defining object. They hold tremendous value at different levels (a $10,000 Barrett or paw paw's last rifle), and people react differently. To sum up the outrage, it's "My gun ownership is safe, legal and harms no one. Further it provides me with great benefit and my guns are of particular value. Yes, ownership presents a higher risk for us all, but individually I am not contributing to that risk. So, the collective can go fuck itself. Don't write laws that punish people following the rules, enforce the ones you have and punish people breaking them." Also, it becomes a slippery slope. If you restrict access to guns, why not cars? Cars kill more people than guns. If you can't own a gun, and you can't drive a car, what about restricting access to credit? The banks need protection from your craziness too! You can't selectively start applying logic in the US, it gets ugly quick. Either no logic, free for all (what we have now, basically), or laws that no one will tolerate or be able to enforce.
I don't like the NRA because they want unfettered firearm access with minimal rules and wanton disregard for prudent policies on safety. That said, the reason they oppose any and all gun regulation is that they see it as slowly chipping away at ownership rights. No guns for the mentally ill? Watch the government broaden the criteria for what that means in order to curtail ownership. I don't agree with stupid rules based on fear and no facts like banning certain guns that look a certain way. But the NRA sees any obstruction to ownership as an overreach. I should state that my examples above aren't what I truly think. I'm just conjecturing as to why they oppose rules.
I'm actually more in favor of car control than I am gun control. I can't wait for self driving cars to be good enough where we can ban human drivers on public roads entirely.
Agree with that sentiment. I tossed out the idea to my dad, who is 69 this summer, that after a certain age citizens should be required to have a periodic eye/motor skills test to deem them safe to drive. My point was that the elderly are often terrible drivers and they are not just a danger to themselves, but to anyone else they happen to injure in their many thousand pound moving vehicle. I could see the outrage in his eyes. All he could muster was "well how are they going to get around and take care of things?" I suggested Uber or a taxi. Sorry but driving is a privilege, not a right, and your likelihood of being injuried or killed in a mva is greater than being killed or injuried in just about any other fashion. If you cannot see, you should not be driving. If you cannot reliably press thr correct peddle, you should not be driving. If your reflexes are too slow to deal with normal traffic, you should not be on the road. I got stuck behind an elderly man on a 1 lane road the other day. I get beside him once we both turned onto a 2 lane road and he had his seat moved up so far that his chest was against the steering wheel so he could peer over the steering wheel. He was consistently traveling about 20mph under the speed limit. I am not sure, but am fairly confident, that he should not be driving.
This is one element of the Baby Boomer's lifestyle that's going to come back and bite them in the ass. My mom just turned 60, and a few of her older friends who still drive Suburbans and Tahoes have already been in fender benders. There's literally not enough care facilities or housing designed for the elderly. My buddy's company that does carpentry retrofits for houses at insurance companies' expense cleans the fuck up putting wheelchair ramps in homes. The ubiquity of guns, rise of medical bankruptcy and the recession most of them haven't fully recovered from is creating a perfect storm of suicide risk. I've heard of a few of my dad's buddies take the easy way out when confronted with cancer or debilitation in their 50s/60s. I'd be lying if I didn't say fuck em and good riddance.