I think Ed's post illustrates the complexity of the issue as a public policy issue.
Ed Ames said:
The guy's in his early 40s and has been trying to deal with chronic health issues and depression for a while. Anyone who has done any research will know that approximately 40yo males with chronic health issues are at extreme risk of suicide...
A a concerned friend, I probably don't want to have a friend who suffers from chronic depression - at an extreme risk of suicide - buying a gun. I wouldn't sell a gun to a friend in those straits one of mine. Would you?
There are a lot of issues with selling guns to folks in that condition. The first is that at least as I recall, though handguns are not the most common choice as a method of killing yourself, they are by far the most effective. As I recall stats from years ago, pills are the most common choice, but are not very effective (in terms of the number of people who survive). But when someone does chose to use a handgun, they are much more likely to succeed in a suicide attempt. That's not surprising - handguns are by design, lethal.
... if we punish people for being sick by stripping them of their civil rights (including 2a rights) we discourage them from seeking assistance ...
And that's also very true - though I am not sure that "punish" is the intended consequence. I think the intent is protecting mentally ill people and those around them.
However, I am sure that to the person who's denied, it feels like a punishment. It's also an issue where people have jobs that would be in jeopardy if they sought mental health treatment, but are suffering from mental health issues.
Delta 9 also raises an interesting point.
delta9 said:
Mental illness and suicidality are not about weakness of character or not being a good enough person. They are usually, in my experience and from what I've studied, a combination of incredibly stressful circumstances and a vulnerability of some sort caused by a combination of chemistry, genetics, and past experiences influencing thoughts and behaviors. That is certainly what it was in my case.
I am not judging you at all. But would you agree that during the time when you were in a depressed and suicidal state, you probably should not have been allowed to buy weapons?
Just to be clear, I also have some experience with these issues. I am a recovered alcoholic (over two decades sober now). I didn't survive because of my own strength - in my opinion, G-d had a lot to do with it. But I don't want to start another one of those threads.
I have to tell you that during my drinking days - particularly towards the very end, it would have been a very bad public policy to allow me easy access to handguns. I may very well have harmed other people (probably not intentionally, but I wasn't thinking any too clearly
in those days). If I had a handgun in my possession at they very end, I would be dead now.
So I do think that there are a number of temporary conditions in one's life which might - as a matter of public policy - make it advisable to deny easy access to handguns for that temporary period.
leadcounsel said:
Yep, it's a sad state of affairs, but the reality is that all it takes is someone to go to court and lie to get a temporary restraining order. The threshold is minimal and easy to get one. This is an 'ex parte' order, meaning you had no right to be present.
I have to also sat that the TRO (Temporary Restraining Order) issue is a little more complicated than most posters have made it out to be. Are RO's abused? Very much so. I hear that filing an RO is
pro forma in divorce cases.
But I have to say that of all the divorces I have watched, in the few that included a TRO, the TRO seems to have been justified. When I have heard that one was issued, it had always been proceeded by threatened or actual violence. While I agree that there are significant issues raised by TROs, I am not quite sure that they are issued quite as willy-nilly as we are lead to believe.
Let's be very clear that Restraining Orders are an attempt to solve a problem that
does exist. The solution may not be correct, but the problem does exist. From reading the papers around here, it is not at all uncommon for a man to try to kill a woman when she tries to end an abusive relationship. It's not at all uncommon in the recent past, for a man to kill a woman and her children when she tries to escape an abusive relationship.
I have seen folks who are normally well balanced act extremely badly during a divorce. I am not judging folks - I have a good friend, one of the people I respect most in this world. He had very bad divorce before I ever knew him. Today (15 - 20 years later), he and his ex are relatively cordial. I asked him about it, and he said, "I hope you are never as angry in your life as I was at her. I am not very happy with some of the actions I took. You need to understand this. Divorce is about two issues - sex and money. Those are the two issues that most of us feel most deeply about, and those are the two issues that make us the most crazy."
I am not sure whether I agree with the law, but I think several things are true:
- It is possible that any one of us might go through a temporary period of our live where - as a public policy issue, we should be denied easy access to firearms.
- This would be the case when we are suffering from some kind of mental illness.
- This could also be the case when a judge has issued a Domestic Violence TRO against us.
Mike