When the Right to Bear Arms Includes the Mentally Ill

[Semicolon]

Last April, workers at Middlesex Hospital in Connecticut called the police to report that a psychiatric patient named Mark Russo had threatened to shoot his mother if officers tried to take the 18 rifles and shotguns he kept at her house. Mr. Russo, who was off his medication for paranoid schizophrenia, also talked about the recent elementary school massacre in Newtown and told a nurse that he “could take a chair and kill you or bash your head in between the eyes,” court records show.

 The police seized the firearms, as well as seven high-capacity magazines, but Mr. Russo, 55, was eventually allowed to return to the trailer in Middletown where he lives alone. In an interview there recently, he denied that he had schizophrenia but said he was taking his medication now — though only “the smallest dose,” because he is forced to. His hospitalization, he explained, stemmed from a misunderstanding: Seeking a message from God on whether to dissociate himself from his family, he had stabbed a basketball and waited for it to reinflate itself. When it did, he told relatives they would not be seeing him again, prompting them to call the police.

As for his guns, Mr. Russo is scheduled to get them back in the spring, as mandated by Connecticut law.

“I don’t think they ever should have been taken out of my house,” he said. “I plan to get all my guns and ammo and knives back in April.”

The Russo case highlights a central, unresolved issue in the debate over balancing public safety and the Second Amendment right to bear arms: just how powerless law enforcement can be when it comes to keeping firearms out of the hands of people who are mentally ill.

Connecticut’s law giving the police broad leeway to seize and hold guns for up to a year is actually relatively strict. Most states simply adhere to the federal standard, banning gun possession only after someone is involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility or designated as mentally ill or incompetent after a court proceeding or other formal legal process. Relatively few with mental health issues, even serious ones, reach this point.

As a result, the police often find themselves grappling with legal ambiguities when they encounter mentally unstable people with guns, unsure how far they can go in searching for and seizing firearms and then, in particular, how they should respond when the owners want them back.

Source

There's more of the article; it's long. What do you think?

[Queen Victoria]

And what "well regulated militia" does he belong to?

[RageBeoulve]

He just sounds like some shit talking little kid to me.

[Jack]

For some reason though people who have history of mental institution don't pass the background check to purchase firearms, so not sure why he would be given his guns back. Checked Wikipedia and that seems to be correct.

[Semicolon]

For some reason though people who have history of mental institution don't pass the background check to purchase firearms, so not sure why he would be given his guns back. Checked Wikipedia and that seems to be correct.

Read the rest of the article; it was too long to fully post.

After mental patients recover, their Second Amendment rights kick back in.

[Jack]

People recover from schizophrenia?

[Semicolon]

People recover from schizophrenia?

Yes

[odeon]

When the rights of the one weigh more than the rights of the many. Karma is a bitch and will bite you in the ass, eventually.

/shrugs

[Pyraxis]

Somebody who can't stay on their meds is not recovered from schizophrenia.

[Semicolon]

When the rights of the one weigh more than the rights of the many. Karma is a bitch and will bite you in the ass, eventually.

/shrugs

That's the way the US system is set up. Link

Somebody who can't stay on their meds is not recovered from schizophrenia.

Perhaps, but schizophrenics are not automatically dangerous, and it does them a disservice to deprive them of their Constitutional rights based on a stereotype.

[Jack]

Psychiatric patients who threaten to shoot their mothers and bash nurses in the head with chairs should automatically be considered dangerous.

[Jack]

Somebody who can't stay on their meds is not recovered from schizophrenia.

Someone who continues to display symptoms, and/or takes meds, isn't recovered.

[bodie]

It would be wrong to single out schizophrenics or anyone with a mental disorder.

In the case of Mr Russo, I don't think he should have his guns back. 
* Mainly because of his recent actions.  His conduct was so that his right to have a gun should be forfeited.

* I think he is potentially dangerous, and this is magnified due to his unwillingness to accept he has a disorder.  His comment about 'taking only the smallest amount of medication' is not very reassuring.   The article suggests the likelihood of him repeating this behaviour boils down to him taking meds or not.   Therefore suggesting it is quite likely to reoccur.

* The use of guns by citizens should be for legitimate reasons such as hunting.  I accept that 'self defence' is another logical reason.  I hope 'threatening' people is not a legitimate use. 

* Most people probably say stuff they don't mean when angered.  However,  threatening to shoot people, especially when the person making the threats has  an armoury of 18 or more firearms should be taken seriously. 

I am not going to pretend that I know anything about American laws, or your constitution.  I find it a bit confusing when laws seem to differ from state to state.   My POV is purely from an angle of 'would I like to live next door to Mr Russo when he gets his firearm stash returned?'  No way. 

[Jack]

It would be wrong to single out schizophrenics or anyone with a mental disorder.

Not really talking about singling out anyone or what's right or wrong. Talking about the laws which exist. It's a national standard that people with a history of being in a mental institution don't pass the background check to purchase guns. Of course, background checks don't stop anyone from acquiring guns, only those who purchase them from legitimate dealers. Not sure what state law mandates his guns be returned, but it seems like a loophole. Maybe he owned the guns before being institutionalized; maybe it's because he's not trying to purchase them from a legitimate dealer; don't know.

[Semicolon]

It would be wrong to single out schizophrenics or anyone with a mental disorder.

In the case of Mr Russo, I don't think he should have his guns back. 
* Mainly because of his recent actions.  His conduct was so that his right to have a gun should be forfeited.

* I think he is potentially dangerous, and this is magnified due to his unwillingness to accept he has a disorder.  His comment about 'taking only the smallest amount of medication' is not very reassuring.   The article suggests the likelihood of him repeating this behaviour boils down to him taking meds or not.   Therefore suggesting it is quite likely to reoccur.

* The use of guns by citizens should be for legitimate reasons such as hunting.  I accept that 'self defence' is another logical reason.  I hope 'threatening' people is not a legitimate use. 

* Most people probably say stuff they don't mean when angered.  However,  threatening to shoot people, especially when the person making the threats has  an armoury of 18 or more firearms should be taken seriously. 

I am not going to pretend that I know anything about American laws, or your constitution.  I find it a bit confusing when laws seem to differ from state to state.   My POV is purely from an angle of 'would I like to live next door to Mr Russo when he gets his firearm stash returned?'  No way.

Rather than thinking about the US as being like Great Britain, think of it as like the EU, and every state is a nation (which is imprecise, I know). The federal government can only make laws about certain things, most of which involve multiple states (such as highways, currency, the military, etc.) Everything else is reserved for the state to make laws about (including many gun laws). The states have different histories, and the citizens of each state elect representatives differently, so a state dominated by gun violence might make stricter laws than a state where most adult citizens hunt for food. In any case, the right to bear arms is protected by the Constitution (a federal document), so all states must obey it, whether they want to or not.