Rep. Carolyn McCarthy is at it again and so is the NRA

[44Brent]

Unjustified Psychiatric Commitment in the U.S.A.

http://www.antipsychiatry.org/unjustif.htm

by Lawrence Stevens, J.D.

In 1992, U.S. Representative Patricia Schroeder of Colorado held hearings investigating the practices of psychiatric hospitals in the United States. Rep. Schroeder summarized her committee's findings as follows: "Our investigation has found that thousands of adolescents, children, and adults have been hospitalized for psychiatric treatment they didn't need; that hospitals hire bounty hunters to kidnap patients with mental health insurance; that patients are kept against their will until their insurance benefits run out; that psychiatrists are being pressured by the hospitals to increase profit; that hospitals 'infiltrate' schools by paying kickbacks to school counselors who deliver students; that bonuses are paid to hospital employees, including psychiatrists, for keeping the hospital beds filled; and that military dependents are being targeted for their generous mental health benefits. I could go on, but you get the picture" (quoted in: Lynn Payer, Disease- Mongers: How Doctors, Drug Companies, and Insurers Are Making You Feel Sick, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1992, pp. 234-235).
A headline on the front page of the July 6, 1986 Oakland, California Tribune reads: "Adolescents are packing private mental hospitals But do most of them belong there?" The newspaper article says: "...mental patients advocates say many adolescents in private hospitals are not seriously mentally ill, but merely rebellious. By holding the adolescents, who often dislike hospitalization, advocates say private hospitals reap profits and please parents. ... Some county mental health officials and psychiatrists at private hospitals acknowledge there are hospitalized adolescents who, ideally, shouldn't be there. ... 'It distresses me to see kids in these facilities; it distressesme to see the profits going on,' Jay Mahler, of Patients Rights Advocacy and Training, said two weeks ago at a Concord Public forum. 'It's a hot business,' Tim Goolsby, a Contra Costa County Probation Department adolescent placement supervisor, later agreed. 'If your kids like sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll, that's the place to put them. I'm not sure insurance companies know what's going on, but they're being ripped off.' Goolsby estimated 80 percent of adolescents in Contra Costa private psychiatric hospitals are not mentally ill... University of Southern California

 

[Neo-Luddite]

44Brent--fun article. Lots of teens from the more affluent areas will do a stint in a 'facility' of some stripe--like a bizarre right of passage.

 

[JohnBT]

Based on my years of professional experience, almost all of those hospitalizations would have been VOLUNTARY COMMITTMENTS. Their parents signed them in, not a judge or court hearing officer.


"My biggest issue with the NICS bill is that it validates existing law"

It was already valid: on the books, functioning, etc., etc., etc.

John

 

[oldfart]

As many of you may have figured out, this bill and the NRA's participation in its passage really bothers me. What bothers me even more is how some on the board try to denigrate arguements against the bill with comments like, 'do you want to see nut-jobs get guns?'
I guess I need to clarify my position, if not for those who hold a view opposing mine, then for my own sake: Yes! I do want "nut-jobs" to have guns but I also want anybody else who wants one to have a gun. That way the "nut-jobs" will be thinned out. I do fear the possibility that one of my kids will get shot by someone mentally unbalanced, but I fear even more the process by which people are declared unfit to own a gun. There are far too many cases of duly formed courts rendering wrong decisions for me to feel comfortable with that process.
For those who will jump up and accuse me of promoting anarchy, let me point out that anarchy can be a bad thing. . . or not, depending on circumstances, but tyranny, even a tyranny of the majority, is always a bad thing. We were originally given a republican form of government as a safeguard against such tyranny but we - our grandparents, our parents and now us, have frittered it away in our unquenchable thirst for more stuff.
This isn't the first time this bill has come up and if it should be voted down it will come back again and again until it passes. That's the way the anti-gun lobbies work, by attrition, erosion and gradual brainwashing of our children. It seems to be working, even here.

NEVER AID THE ENEMY! EVER!​

 

[JohnBT]

Well, fear is a good thing, unless it is an unreasonable fear. That would not be good.

John

 

[stellarpod]

oldfart states:

NEVER AID THE ENEMY! EVER!

I would respectfully submit that when you make statements such as, "Yes! I do want "nut-jobs" to have guns but I also want anybody else who wants one to have a gun", you are giving AID to THE ENEMY. The only thing an anti will read in your statement is that you want "nut-jobs" to have guns. It wouldn't be the first time they took a statement out of context to portray us all as fringe lunatics.

Although I understand your logic I do not agree with it. We all draw a line somewhere. I cannot in good faith agree that it is a positive thing in any sense of the word to allow those adjudicated mentally incompetent to own firearms. Should we also let people randomly scream "FIRE" in a crowded theater in order to maintain their 1st Amendment rights? Of course not! There simply have to be sane limits.

The concern about who gets to decide who is mentally incompetent and the methods they use to ascribe the label is a separate, and perhaps legitimate, fight. If the laws that define adjudication of mental capacity are wrong then they affect much more than just gun ownership. But, fight those issues on their own merit. Don't drag the gun ownership debate into it.

stellarpod

 

[RealGun]

A simpler logic is to consider the right of self defense to be sacred. If one reasonably needs to be denied the right of self defense, then he should be both confined and protected in a publicly maintained facility. Everyone's rights become compromised when society's misfits are turned out on the streets and when euthanasia or forced sterilization are options off the table.

What we have is the need to be pragamatic, but there is no requirement that all accept the philosophy of the underlying scenario. There is no provision nor will there likely be to purify the gene pool, which is all the more reason for "qualified" people to have the unfettered right to defend themsleves. Gun control is a way to avoid the issue of ridding society of its flotsam, foolishly supposing that it can be done with legislation. Somewhere in there, everyone is treated as a criminal walking the streets, everyone's right of self defense in question.