Using the NICS list for mentally unbalanced minors?

I agree. If we aren't going to institutionalize mentally ill people (of danger to themselves or others) anymore than at the very least there needs to be a national registry that can be cross-checked when needed.

Probably not politically correct though. It seems to be easier to blame the tool instead of the person using it.

This begs the question (for the two above posters). Is it really your opinion that a simple medical diagnosis should get individuals added to the federal NICS list of prohibited persons? Wasn't this issue laid to rest with the NICS improvement act?

You do realize what your suggestions would entail, do you not?

Sometimes I think that gun owners are their own political worst enemies.

I'm not sure who has the authority to put a person on the NICS list...... but to be honest, I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with school personal having that authority. I have seen TOO MANY abuses of power by school teachers/guidance counselors/principles, etc..... who have a vendetta. Or even cases where an un-popular student gets accused by other students of wrongdoing just because the other kids think it's funny to get them in trouble. The potential of abuse is too alarming, perhaps a referral system would be more in line. I also think that merely having a psychological condition should not be grounds for terminating rights. I have a cousin who is schizophrenic, when he was first diagnosed it was a real problem, and I would not have trusted him with a firearm, however now, a decade later...... he has it well under control, and I would see no problem with him possessing a firearm.

RavenVT100: "Is it really your opinion that a simple medical diagnosis should get individuals added to the federal NICS list of prohibited persons? Wasn't this issue laid to rest with the NICS improvement act?"

Begs a few questions. An individual who assaulted me was involuntarily admitted to an institution, but was released within a short period of time. Said individual was prescribed medications, but assiduously maintained they were never actually medically "diagnosed" as anything in particular or ever technically "committed." That same person prevailed in several legal matters related to their ability to remain free and to possess firearms; it did not end for them or for certain others at all well. But it did end.

Many mental health professionals will deliberately avoid giving someone an official diagnosis for problems that are easily treatable and likely temporary. The reason for this is that an official diagnosis, on record, WILL cause problems like this for the person later in life even if they are successfully treated, fully recover, and are discharged and no longer require medication. In order to avoid marking a person for life for something that may just require temporary treatment, they do not list an official diagnosis.

Granted, for something like schizophrenia, it's not something that is ever going to go away, and it's not something that can ever be fully controlled. Schizophrenics NEED to be diagnosed and prevented from purchasing a firearm. But teenagers are also very hard to diagnose due to many hormonal changes and widely varying stress levels that may variably aggravate another problem. Because of this, they may have not actually diagnosed him, but instead treated him without an on-record diagnosis, adopting a wait-and-see attitude to ensure they got it right. If the parents did not get him reevaluated, he may have never received a final diagnosis.

Does this practice need to be changed? For the most part, no. Many people seek temporary treatment for things like depression yet do not need to be on a permanent no-gun list. Even if they require ongoing treatment, if their medications keep them fully stable and rational there is no reason to bar them from owning a firearm. However, doctors DO need to be more proactive about blacklisting people with certain kinds of complex mental illness that cannot be controlled.

If you open up the pandora's box of adding people to NICS without any due process to speak of, I have no doubt that our good friends in the Democratic Party will find some pretty amazing and creative uses for this.

Not to be rude, but I didn't realize that adding people to a government-run blacklist that by design removes a constitutional right--with no due process--was what this country is all about. Maybe only when we're scared of mentally unbalanced teens?

Let's be clear here: I've got no issue with NICS when there's due process involved, but when you remove that element, the system becomes arbitrary and capricious.

Sage Thrasher:

Good question. But what are you referring to by "voluntarily add someone?" Do you mean having a family member commit another family member to a hospital or something? And in which state?

Raven: "Do you mean having a family member commit another family member to a hospital or something? And in which state?"

All good questions. And the difference between "involuntary admittal" and "committal" can be legally significant. Sometimes our instinct to protect a family member and to keep things orderly and above all, quiet can come back to bite us later. Then it gets interesting.

Many mental health professionals will deliberately avoid giving someone an official diagnosis for problems that are easily treatable and likely temporary. The reason for this is that an official diagnosis, on record, WILL cause problems like this for the person later in life even if they are successfully treated, fully recover,

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Couldn't the same person declare them to be cured?

Probably be a good idea to talk to a lawyer in your state, then. All I know, given that I've never been in the position of having to decide that for a family member myself, is that the law is different in every state.

In Florida they have the fairly well-known Baker act, but there are similar provisions in other states. Usually it involves some kind of review by the court, whether or not it's actually done in court or not I couldn't tell you.

Here's NRA's fairly detailed run-down of how the NICS was changed in the NICS Improvement act: HR 2640.

They also have a fairly informative Facts & Myths page.

Back Door To Political Repression and 2A Abridgement?

RavenVT100 said:

If you open up the pandora's box of adding people to NICS without any due process to speak of, I have no doubt that our good friends in the Democratic Party will find some pretty amazing and creative uses for this.

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+1 . . . . times 10^23!

What a great way to quash political dissent!! "This poor individual is self-evidently disturbed. He shouldn't be able to purchase or possess firearms for his own and society's good."

Remember these are the same people who equate the good of the Democrat Party with the good of the nation (am I the only one who saw the interview with Bill and Hillary where she seemed shocked that someone might consider that what was good for the party might not be good for the country?). By all means let's give them a way to take away the RKBA from ANYONE THEY CHOOSE!

And let's let NEA bureaucrats set the standards for what constitutes being mentally ill. I can remember when two guys going off campus to settle things mano a mano was no big deal. Heck, a fight on school grounds probably got the participants a trip to the principal's office and some time after school. Now it's a suspension if not an expulsion and mandatory trip to a shrink for evaluation.

Sometimes people here scare the wizz outta me. There is no system you can invent to do good that somebody cannot subvert for their own less than honorable (evil) purposes. I cannot find the quote but I remember a quote that goes something like "That government governs best that governs least."

SHEESH! <walks off shaking head and mumbling to self>

Cyborg

Cyborg: "Sometimes people here scare the wizz outta me. There is no system you can invent to do good that somebody cannot subvert for their own less than honorable (evil) purposes."

And that's a fact. What took me awhile to figure out was, sometimes those same persons aren't even evil by nature at all, but seriously disturbed and with a fixation on ... you.

If he'd been on the NICS banned list, it could have at least somewhat increased the chance that he wouldn't get a firearm.

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Thanks. I needed a laugh.

There has to be due process. Anytime you want to take away a person's rights there has to be due process. You want to prevent a person who is mentally unstable from you need to prove that in a court. That is why the he NICS statute is written the way that it is. To be adjudicated means that there has to be a judicial proceeding.

Should school officials be able to initiate such a proceeding? If they feel that the student is a real and credible threat then yes.

Should school officials be able to initiate such a proceeding? If they feel that the student is a real and credible threat then yes.

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I don't know though. I know an eleven year old boy who was taken from school by ambulance, for a psych evaluation, because he refused to stay in line on the way to the library and ran off down the hall when the teacher tried to grab his arm. Was the kid wrong, Yes. Should he have been punished, yes. But having an ambulance called for a psych eval was going MASSIVELY overboard. Knowing that such major over reactions to perfectly normal childhood behavior happens, makes me really hesitant to willfully give school officials more power than they already have, especially when it comes to something like this.

And that's the other end of the telescope. I've fought school administrators over these sort of issues for years. Better living through Ritalin, they say. Bosh, sez I.

"Schizophrenics NEED to be diagnosed and prevented from purchasing a firearm."

I disagree. There are a large number of individuals with that diagnosis who are functioning in society - working, raising families, etc. Restrictions need to be based on behavior, not diagnosis.

The latest estimate I've seen says that there are 3 million individuals with schizophrenia in the U.S. - about 1% of the population. It's only a few that cause the type of problems you are worried about and there is no way to predict who it will be - anymore than we can predict the future and who among the so-called normal will go postal next.

I'm not minimizing the seriousness of the illness, I've worked with them professionally since 1977.

If I had to pick a restriction, I think I'd focus on folks taking heavy medication and holding driver's licenses. Cars kill more people than guns.

John

2/3rds of the back ward patients showed no signs of schizphrenia 32 years later. And no, you can't claim that they were ALL misdiagnosed. John


"Courtney M. Harding Ph.D. - University of Colorado did a research study of a group of patients released from Vermont State Hospital between 1955 and 1960 in a state funded, early model bio-psycho-social rehabilitation program. The 269 patients chosen for the Vermont model study, were classic back ward cases - those diagnosed with chronic schizophrenia and deemed unable to survive outside of a hospital.

In the 1980’s when Harding and her colleagues tracked down and interviewed all but 7 of the original 269 patients - 32 years in most cases, after their first admission to the hospital. Hardings study in The American Journal of Psychiatry (Vol. 144, No.6 p.718-735) showed that 62% to 68% of those former back ward patients showed no signs at all of schizophrenia."

Excepted from www.schizophrenia-help.com/Schizophrenia__Recover/schizophrenia__recover.htm

Couldn't the same person declare them to be cured?

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Easier said than done. Once it's on their record, it's there to stay. It's in their history, and a history of diagnosed mental illness will disqualify the person. A person would typically have to go before a Federal judge with medical backing to get their rights reinstated. Doctors know this, and unless there is a clear imminent danger they typically will not report a person. Diagnosis is thus typically saved for the most extreme cases. I know people who have had doctors tell them, "You don't want me to diagnose you." In many cases, a diagnosis is only given to enable a functionally disabled person to receive government aid.