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Wednesday, June 1. 2011

Happiness is a Warm Gun

Sunday there was an interesting letter to the editor in the San Diego Union Tribune. In it the writer simply stated this irony, with little political or social commentary: Jared Loughner, the man who opened fire at a Tucson, AZ shopping center killing six people and wounding over a dozen more, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, is by legal definition incompetent to stand trial.

On the flip side, Loughner was, by legal definition, mentally competent to buy a firearm — several, as a matter of fact. Now, some will say the law should be changed so he can’t “get off” with an insanity defense. Okay, let’s go with that idea for a moment, as flawed as it is; it still doesn’t prevent a mentally incompetent person from buying a firearm.

Crazy people buy firearms all the time. Not all of them commit mass murder of course, but maybe, just maybe crazy people shouldn’t be allowed to own guns. Here’s the sticky part: a judge has to declare a person mentally unfit before that person can be denied the right to buy firearms.

And then, that information has to be relayed to the F.B.I. database that keeps records on people who don’t have the right to own firearms, but not every state provides that information to the F.B.I.

So, the states and the federal government pass laws that should prevent crazy people — and terrorists, suspected terrorists, addicts and violent criminals — from owning firearms, but make them nearly impossible to enforce. Then, when someone like Jared Loughner comes along and shoots two dozen people, or Seung-Hui Cho, the man who killed 32 at Virginia Tech in 2007, the people who are only concerned about their Second Amendment right to own firearms say we don’t need more gun laws, we should enforce the ones already in place. Which are nearly impossible to enforce.

Not to mention, for a “watch list” to be effective, every state and every agency for the states and government must participate, by both submitting the information and by using it to screen people, in this case potential gun owners. Not every state gives its firearm-related information to the F.B.I. nor do all the states access the database for gun registration. Not only are there states that don’t wish to participate, there is an organization — a very powerful organization — that actively lobbies and pressures politicians to not make firearms laws or give real teeth to the laws already on the books.

Another problem with the mentally ill: many, if not most, litigators are loathe to pronounce someone unfit mentally because such a ruling does infringe on a person’s rights and not just the right to bear arms. That’s actually the least of it for most of the mentally ill. They can be forced into psychiatric institutions and have a legal guardian appointed that makes all decisions for the ill person; in other words become wards of the state and that severely restricts the independence of the mentally ill.

So, declaring someone mentally unfit and possibly a danger to themselves and others is a decision not made lightly. Those who are proposing such an action for someone have to prove to a judge beyond any reasonable doubt the ill person in question is a danger and incapable of making rational decisions and taking care of themselves.

Years ago some friends and I made weekly visits to the locked-down psychiatric ward of the Veterans Administration Medical Center in La Jolla, CA. We did it for years. There were people locked up in that ward who obviously shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a firearm, or any type of sharp object, for that matter.

They would receive treatment for a couple weeks, maybe a couple months, but eventually they would be back out on the street. Often enough though, we would see them back behind those locked doors, having stopped taking their medications and started self-medicating with alcohol and street drugs.

It’s hard to say if any of them were legally declared mentally unfit, but clearly many were incapable of living on their own, they reappeared in the psychiatric unit so often. A person can be put into an institution for certain periods of time without being declared mentally unfit by a judge

Could any of them legally buy firearms? I’m guessing yes. Should any of them own firearms? Ain’t no guess, the answer is no. Thankfully, for most of them owning a firearm wasn’t a priority on their lists. Once they were deep into their untreated illnesses it was all about getting the drugs and alcohol and then fighting the demons in their heads.

Actually, it could be quite sad listening to these people talk about what they thought was going on, their lives; they were being controlled by vast conspiracies against them perpetrated by the government and various phantom tormentors.

None of them should have been allowed to own a firearm and some of them maybe should have been committed to the permanent confinement unit at the V.A. — a section of the unit housing people my friends and I rarely saw because they were too far gone.

But what are you going to do? How does someone sit in judgment of another when the one to be judged hasn’t broken any laws? And that is why it is so hard to commit someone; it is a severe judgment.

One solution: Restrict the types of guns and ammunition a person can own. Stop selling 30-round clips at the very least. Force gun shows to honor existing laws regarding the sale of firearms, including private sellers who are completely unregulated. Neither of these options would stop gun violence, either solo or together, but they would lower the body count in some of these mass murders, like we saw with Jared Loughner and Seung-Hui Cho.

Personally, I’m loath to limit any of our liberties as outlined in the Bill of Rights. The Second Amendment (and every Supreme Court decision regarding it) is pretty clear: we each have the right to bear arms. But we lead the world in death by guns. Mexico may have drug-related gun battles, but when it comes to the percentage of the population killed with firearms, we lead the world.

At least we lead the world in something.
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And just a reminder: my lovely and dear friend Claudia is still competing to be the Hooters Octagon Girl for UFC 132 in Las Vegas, NV July 2 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. We can vote for Claudia once a day until Friday. If you have a Facebook account, please do!

Posted by Tim Forkes in Social Responsibility at 00:01 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

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