Gun Control Debate #2

[human]

Well, first of all, Vegas isn’t a good example as we still don’t know what really happened there. Lots of people were shot, true. But that’s all we know. We don’t know who did it, how many shooters there were, or what guns they were using. Unless you believe the fabricated story we’ve been told by the FBI and the LVMPD.

But anyway, so you’re not concerned with bolt action rifles. Okay. But what about semi-automatic 22 rimfire rifles that will accept magazines with a capacity of 100? Or even larger caliber deer hunting rifles that typically only come with 5 or 10 round magazines, but could be easily modified to hold more. What about semi automatic shotguns that hold 5 to 10, or more shells, in the magazine?

I’m asking because many of us have these types of guns that we’ve owned for decades, and used for hunting. I don’t own an AR-15 and probably never will, as I have no use for one. But I have plenty of other guns that are semi automatic, and really not that different from an AR -15, other than mine are not black and have wood stocks instead of plastic.

Exactly. As I said, my hubby's 22 was made automatic in under an hour.

He feels bullets should be expensive. All semi automatics including handguns banned.

 

[human]

Obama endlessly tried congress would not cooperate

Not picking presidential sides but - if a President who had control of all three branches of government and believed in greater (or even total) gun control couldn't get anything moved into law, how is it reasonable to expect different results today?

What President was that! Obama had control for four months. Remember the Franken recount, the Kennedy illness and someone else. The country was going down the tubes so he was working on saving it.

 

[human]

My kid has worked in a mental hospital for several years. For the most part, she's had no harm come to her. However, they get them straightened out on meds. Some will be there for a very, very, long time. Others, when they go back out into the world, don't have someone to help them stay on meds, and some are homeless, and live in poverty , and don't have access to meds or even a place to keep their meds. So, in a few weeks/months, they are brought back to the hospital.

What is a mental hospital? In MN they have them for criminally insane. I think the others were closed. Who pays for that hospital?

 

[bluesneakers]

What is a mental hospital? In MN they have them for criminally insane. I think the others were closed. Who pays for that hospital?

A psychiatric hospital. Some hospitals have specific wings or floors for psych patients, but in some places there are separate hospitals. They are covered by insurance, sometimes stays are covered the same as any other inpatient treatment is covered, but I'm not sure about mental parity wrt health insurance anymore. There might be limits on how much they'll pay or how long someone can stay inpatient the same way insurance companies would limit how many times a person could see a psychiatrist annually.

 

[BayouBelle_LA]

SBM and this has probably been covered elsewhere but if she said the word "crazy" when she was taking about mental health one more time I was going to scream. I wanted to hear her out but language is power and I wasn't giving her any after that.

Well I had to look because I didn't recall her using the word 'crazy' excessively.
She use it twice that I could see. I think others said it more.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/22/politics/cnn-town-hall-full-video-transcript/index.html

 

[Tawny]

It should NOT be used at all.

 

[flourish]

It should be used at all.

Derogatory terms like "crazy" or "nuts" should NEVER be used to refer to mental illness or the people suffering from them.

It makes her even more villainous imo.

 

[human]

A psychiatric hospital. Some hospitals have specific wings or floors for psych patients, but in some places there are separate hospitals. They are covered by insurance, sometimes stays are covered the same as any other inpatient treatment is covered, but I'm not sure about mental parity wrt health insurance anymore. There might be limits on how much they'll pay or how long someone can stay inpatient the same way insurance companies would limit how many times a person could see a psychiatrist annually.

Oh. Yes, That is right. But they do not get to stay very long, do they?

People used to stay for years . That is no longer true or is it?

 

[kittythehare]

Oh. Yes, That is right. But they do not get to stay very long, do they?

People used to stay for years . That is no longer true or is it?

In Ireland there are specific psychiatriatric hospitals. There was a tradition for keeping them pretty much for the duration of their lives. Then a move came to try rehousing them in communities with various levels of success.
Many of these institutions are still there.
But many have been replaced with new acute areas attached to general hospitals.. not long term, often sent home way too soon etc..

 

[rsd1200]

Obama endlessly tried congress would not cooperate

Not picking presidential sides but - if a President who had control of all three branches of government and believed in greater (or even total) gun control couldn't get anything moved into law, how is it reasonable to expect different results today?

FWIW, the former POTUS never said he wanted a total gun ban. Stricter background checks? Yes. Increased Mental health access? Yes. Hire more ATF agents to enforce current gun laws? Yes. Did our former POTUS, having the majority, for two years, in the House and Senate, ban semis? No.

Bump stocks, and trigger mods, were passed, under our former POTUS. The ATF, passed them at that time, b/c bump stocks did not physically change the firearm. If bump stocks are going to be banned, then so should trigger modifications. .

To create an amendment, that would repeal the 2nd Amendment, just doesn't seem as if it would fly, no matter who is POTUS.

The link below, shows a legal, trigger mod, that gives three selections; Safe/Semi/Auto. It pretty much allows you to turn your semi into an auto. The first rounds he fires, are in semi mode. The other rounds fired, are in auto. I think this trigger has been around for about four years or so.

Grand View Outdoors TacCon Trigger Review
https://youtu.be/rChLIj7COrM

Also, lots of folks have semi pistols. I used to have one. Like our semi rifle, it shot as fast as I could pull the trigger. There are fairly easy ways to turn a semi pistol, into an auto pistol, too (it takes three parts). The ways I've seen, I don't think are legal, but, if you are planning to murder lots of folks, legality is not an issue.

Full auto glock w/a 50 round drum
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idHpBFLmRis

I know I sound like a broken record, but, keeping firearms out of the hands of children/teens, in the home, is a good first step. There's also far too many toddlers finding firearms in the home, and killing themselves, or someone else, just from being a curious toddler. Folks recognizing that their family member may have a problem, and taking it seriously, is a close second. Don't take mentally unsound people to the firing range to bond, where they just get skilled at using their firearm, not to mention becoming good at marksmanship, and don't buy them firearms, or give them access to firearms.

 

[bobcat]

IMO- Fully automatic is not really that big of a concern. Same with bump stocks. A semi-automatic rifle is a little slower but also a lot more accurate. With full auto you’re just randomly spraying bullets and not necessarily hitting any of your intended targets.

 

[kay74]

Your concerns about psych meds, the role of psychiatrists, and the state of our mental health care are spot on.

The difficult and harsh truth to accept is that for the vast majority of seriously mentally ill people, there is no "cure". Those who have a brief situational mental health crisis, such as grief following the death of a loved one, a relationship break up, situational depression, even maternal post partum depression-- these kind of mental health conditions often resolve without life long impairment.

But for many, many people, the approach to their mental health needs is lifelong. Often a combination of meds with intensive and/ or regular, perpetual therapy is needed for them to be maximally functional, and appropriately supervised and monitored.

Lots of people being treated for mental illness, and/ or their families, are resistant to this kind of plan.

Lots of people being treated for serious mental illness and/ or behavioral conditions arising from organic brain problems, and their families, WANT this kind of plan. They want them to be closely monitored, with regular therapy, respite/ overnight care available for families, and the option of short term AND long term residential care.

The harsh issue is that no one wants to pay for the HUMAN component of care and supervision, which is astoundingly costly, relative to even expensive psychotherapeutic drugs. Educating, training, hiring, retaining, and paying for all of the levels of providers is HUGELY expensive. This encompasses all levels from aides, to psychiatrists.

With outcome evidence so depressing and dismal, and relapses and deterioration so common, it's my opinion that the entire industry from payers (insurance sources) and providers has HAD to shift to a crisis-oriented outpatient approach for intensive mental health care, and relies on meds to "control and supervise" seriously ill patients. Meds are still, IMO, vastly cheaper than HUMAN resources to nurture, care, comfort, and supervise. Supervision and regimen compliance (meds and appointments) has been outsourced to families.

When families reach their breaking points, need respite, or need to have their loved one removed into residential long term or short term care, the bar is VERY high to get those services, except for brief hospitalizations. The plan is ALWAYS to return the patient into the care of their family members, until the family abandons the patient, AND the patient FINALLY demonstrates they are "enough" of a "danger to themselves and others."

Civil outpatient commitment, IMO, is a management strategy that is underutilized to mandate compliance to a treatment regimen.

To get to the point where someone CAN be put into a civil committment status, or guardianship status, there has to be a LONG paper trail of a lot of contact with the mental health system, social services involvement, school involvement (for minors), and yes, the justice system when they display violent or criminal behaviors, threats, and tendencies.

So it's easy to see the leap to how the criminal justice system has become the de-facto network of residential care for a lot of mentally ill people.

And when we shield mentally ill kids, young adults, and adults from developing that needed HISTORY within the criminal justice system AND mental health system, it is virtually impossible to keep them from doing things like buying weapons. Until they have ENOUGH history officially in the background system, and they have not had their rights removed by a court, or put in guardianship status, then they CAN pass background checks and buy weapons.

And we can't seem to "fix" the problems with adequate supervision, mandatory compliance to treatment regimens, adequate ACCESS to competent mental health treatment regimens, enough mental health workers at all levels of care, and willingness to pay for the millions of people who need lifelong care and supervision.

So what you have is a system that preserves the "rights" of seriously mentally ill people to refuse or avoid care, above the "rights" of the rest of the public not to be hurt or injured by them.

Coupled with a liberal/ progressive ideology that abhors the involvement of any level of police or criminal justice consequences with violent behavior by mentally ill people.

Coupled with the relatively easy access and affordability of psychotropic drugs that blunt and control violent behavior, and frequently improve the societal functioning of the mentally ill.

So that's where the money has gone. We pay for psych drugs fairly readily, and are thrilled when patients and their families are in compliance with the process of outpatient medical psych appointments, because we have done "something" that can be demonstrated with actual outcome data, that works, to improve the lives of the ill person, and everyone around them.

Psych drugs DO work to control violent behavior and impulses in the correctly identified and diagnosed population of the mentally ill.

I think we clearly know what "doesn't work" at this point.

The trick is determining how, as a society, we are going to compel treatment from those that are unwilling. The challenge is deciding who is "mentally ill enough" to compel them to have a care regimen, and consequences/ interventions when they don't comply. The challenge is deciding from which people we will restrict their rights.

Currently, it seems (IMO) that a lot of anti-gun ideologists would prefer to work on these "people problems" by creating more restrictions on the rights of the many (law abiding gun owners to have), in order that "the few" criminally impulsive/ criminally insane "might" have less access to guns.

The sheer raw emotion of these mass killings by very troubled people has shifted the focus of attention to "gun control", rather than "controlling bad people". Why? Because guns are inanimate objects that are far easier to control than people. And passing more laws to control law abiding people is far easier than actually tackling the issues of deciding how we are going to structure a process to remove rights from some people who are seriously ill and/ or permanently impaired.

There is also an unrealistic/ childish "wish" by a lot of people that "if only" someone like NC had had just a little more "talk therapy", he would have been "cured" of his "mental illness". I've heard and read a lot of people lamenting that "If only" he had continued to take his prescribed meds, he wouldn't have shot and killed 17 people. Neither is correct.

Someone like NC was seriously, permanently, and organically impaired, and IMO, should have been in multidisciplinary mandated treatment, coupled with legal restrictions on his "rights". He needed lifelong supervision and treatment; now he will get it.

NC avoided treatment, or was only sporadically compliant, and the rest of the adults in the mental health, school, and law enforcement systems avoided doing ANYTHING legal and official that would have restricted his rights to buy a gun. They enabled him, at every level, to become the killer he now is, IMO.

Nobody, but nobody, wanted to stick their neck out to start the process of civil commitment for this massively disturbed youth. Nobody wanted to bring criminal charges against him. Lots of people begged LE for help, and "said something". Those who could have *done* something, didn't do the RIGHT thing.

Timothy McVeigh bought fertilizer and rented a truck. He killed 168 people without a gun. But IIRC, he was a veteran, and had knowledge of, access to, and interest in guns. He chose to use a bomb to carry out his murderous intent. The Columbine killers didn't need AR-15s. The Virginia tech shooter used handguns. Numerous school shootings have been carried out with handguns. Terrorists have used knives to slash, and trucks to run over groups of vulnerable pedestrians.

Guns aren't the problem. People are the problem-- people with bad intentions.

But guns are an easy villain. Guns are inanimate and don't talk back. They don't vote. They are scary looking, and can kill. Gun control activists who have never handled, or shot a gun, are regarded as "experts" by the anti-gun media and activists. The media won't publish very many occurrences where a "good guy" with a gun prevented, or stopped, a "bad person with a gun" from more mayhem. That is simply too controversial for the anti-gun agenda.

The serious issues we cannot seem to get a handle on is how to identify and control the PEOPLE who have murderous intentions.

But yes, it is easy to medicate those that are willing to be medicated to control their serious manifestations of mental illness. So I don't see that stopping any time soon. Other than incarceration in the criminal justice system, it's pretty much the only effective thing we have for the mentally ill with criminal and violent behaviors.

God, it's so depressing.

EXCELLENT POST. You covered everything.

 

[kay74]

I just read where Nick Cruz's mother was an addict and he was conceived during a one-night stand. He very well could have been a crack baby. Society has to change. This single mother thing having kids with no marriage and no father does NOT cut it. Every child deserves a warm loving home. The majority of kids in trouble do not have this.

 

[EuTuCroquet?]

Derogatory terms like "crazy" or "nuts" should NEVER be used to refer to mental illness or the people suffering from them. It makes her even more villainous imo.

Some of the word and phrases NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch uttered and repeated during CNN town hall: crazy, monster, crazies, mentally insane, insane monster, nuts, danger to themselves, danger to others, crazy people, people who murderer. (I’ll likely add more as I count them.). https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/21/poli...-hall/index.html‪http://read.bi/2onZrCv ‬

 

[Blef]

I am still struggling with how an individual's rights supersede the good for all of society? I read a piece about the NRA in the Guardian today and it was all about infringing on individual's rights, as if the deaths of 14,000 people a year don't really matter.

 

[human]

I am still struggling with how an individual's rights supersede the good for all of society? I read a piece about the NRA in the Guardian today and it was all about infringing on individual's rights, as if the deaths of 14,000 people a year don't really matter.

Remember how angry people were when they were told that they could not own human beings?

 

[human]

FWIW, the former POTUS never said he wanted a total gun ban. Stricter background checks? Yes. Increased Mental health access? Yes. Hire more ATF agents to enforce current gun laws? Yes. Did our former POTUS, having the majority, for two years, in the House and Senate, ban semis? No.

Bump stocks, and trigger mods, were passed, under our former POTUS. The ATF, passed them at that time, b/c bump stocks did not physically change the firearm. If bump stocks are going to be banned, then so should trigger modifications. .

To create an amendment, that would repeal the 2nd Amendment, just doesn't seem as if it would fly, no matter who is POTUS.

The link below, shows a legal, trigger mod, that gives three selections; Safe/Semi/Auto. It pretty much allows you to turn your semi into an auto. The first rounds he fires, are in semi mode. The other rounds fired, are in auto. I think this trigger has been around for about four years or so.

Grand View Outdoors TacCon Trigger Review
https://youtu.be/rChLIj7COrM

Also, lots of folks have semi pistols. I used to have one. Like our semi rifle, it shot as fast as I could pull the trigger. There are fairly easy ways to turn a semi pistol, into an auto pistol, too (it takes three parts). The ways I've seen, I don't think are legal, but, if you are planning to murder lots of folks, legality is not an issue.

Full auto glock w/a 50 round drum
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idHpBFLmRis

I know I sound like a broken record, but, keeping firearms out of the hands of children/teens, in the home, is a good first step. There's also far too many toddlers finding firearms in the home, and killing themselves, or someone else, just from being a curious toddler. Folks recognizing that their family member may have a problem, and taking it seriously, is a close second. Don't take mentally unsound people to the firing range to bond, where they just get skilled at using their firearm, not to mention becoming good at marksmanship, and don't buy them firearms, or give them access to firearms.

He had the majority for four months. Remember Franken, Kennedy and then some other person who was in the hospital.

 

[rsd1200]

Some of the word and phrases Dana Loesch uttered and repeated during CNN town hall:crazymonstercraziesmentally insaneinsane monsternutsdanger to themselvesdanger to others crazy people, people who murderer(I’ll likely add more as I count them.)https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/21/poli...-hall/index.html‪http://read.bi/2onZrCv ‬http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/...when-talking-about-mass-shooting-suspects/And nobody rushed her onstage, either. http://deadline.com/2018/02/nra-dan...endees-chanted-shame-on-you-video-1202301513/

I see those terms tossed around, here, on WS, in various forums, almost daily.

 

[human]

I just read where Nick Cruz's mother was an addict and he was conceived during a one-night stand. He very well could have been a crack baby. Society has to change. This single mother thing having kids with no marriage and no father does NOT cut it. Every child deserves a warm loving home. The majority of kids in trouble do not have this.

I read an article where Lynda had mom drug tested,, But you don’t know if you are pregnant for quite awhile so she could have been using including alcohol.

He is really small at 5’7” and 120.That could be impairment or who knows the size of the parents.

 

[Blef]

Almost 365 mass shootings a year in the US? Not so.

Yes so

http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/oct/02/america-mass-shootings-gun-violence