What to do

[Ronin13]

Seems as if the statists have won over even our brethren. Infringing upon my rights and giving the ATF the ability to restrict everyones GOD GIVEN rights based on mental issues that are some of the hardest to understand in all of the health world (take a look at how mental retardation, down syndrome, etc have been viewed over the course of history) is horseshit. RESPONSIBILITY dammit! Everyone is pointing in every fucking direction after all this shit except at themselves. The answer isn't in banning video games, guns, music, media coverage, or requiring classification and certification for every act imaginable. The answer is providing some parenting and raising kids that aren't psychos in the first place. You're kid shoots a bunch of people? That is on YOU, you are a fucking terrible parent and a piece of shit. That other article about "I am name retracted's mother" got my blood boiling. You threaten to kill your parents and yourself and the punishment is a day without electronics? No fucking wonder kids don't give a damn about what you say or do anymore because the majority of parents out there have played their cards and shown they are ineffectual little pussies that are scared of their kids not liking them and actually punishing the little monsters they plopped out before letting them loose on the rest of us.

I'm with Sharpie... Well said. I think parenting has become more and more of a failure lately... why are there so few parents that are actually raising their children? I've seen so many lately that just make me sick.

[Aloha_Shooter]

Given the quackery involved in psychology, the last thing I want is a clinical psychologist being the gateway to exercising a Constitutional right -- even if that psychologist has to have an MD to get the psychiatry rating. I saw my sister's psychology doctorate classmates before her graduation and am still convinced they had a higher percentage per capita of serious mental issues than the general population. A lot (maybe most) of the dissertations I flipped through still confused statistical correlation with causation and were IMNSHO pure crap.

IMO, restriction of rights should require positive legal petition instead of proving mental capacity to exercise rights. Said legal petition needs to demonstrate why the subject is such a potential danger to the community that his/her legal rights should be restricted and friends/family should be educated/encouraged on their responsibilities to use that petition. I don't think this is any different from telling the police or state that dear old Grandma probably shouldn't be driving anymore due to impaired reflexes/eyesight/etc.

[merl]

Seems as if the statists have won over even our brethren. Infringing upon my rights and giving the ATF the ability to restrict everyones GOD GIVEN rights based on mental issues that are some of the hardest to understand in all of the health world (take a look at how mental retardation, down syndrome, etc have been viewed over the course of history) is horseshit. RESPONSIBILITY dammit! Everyone is pointing in every fucking direction after all this shit except at themselves. The answer isn't in banning video games, guns, music, media coverage, or requiring classification and certification for every act imaginable. The answer is providing some parenting and raising kids that aren't psychos in the first place. You're kid shoots a bunch of people? That is on YOU, you are a fucking terrible parent and a piece of shit. That other article about "I am name retracted's mother" got my blood boiling. You threaten to kill your parents and yourself and the punishment is a day without electronics? No fucking wonder kids don't give a damn about what you say or do anymore because the majority of parents out there have played their cards and shown they are ineffectual little pussies that are scared of their kids not liking them and actually punishing the little monsters they plopped out before letting them loose on the rest of us.

ok so kids are raised with no responsibility, they hit 18, are now adults. There is a term for the vast majority of people like that, losers. Some very small percentage of them are actually sick though. Responsibility doesn't enter into it anymore, they are sick.

I think that is what the root of the question is after. How do we deal with those who are truly sick. We have a solution now, the same solution that has been used through history. When they go too far they are put down. Is there a better solution?

Lots of people out there are clamoring to take away our rights to protect everyone from the truly sick, as if that would actually work. Can we come up with a solution that does not include the loss of our rights.

[TFOGGER]

Given the amount of blame our community rightly places on mental incapacity being to blame, what are we willing to do about it?

A friend's proposal is this: Purchase of a firearm requires production of a certificate of mental capacity. Certificates are obtained by conducting a 1 hour interview with a state-certified psychiatrist. This would require development of interview standards and a slew of other intricacies.

An easier to swallow standard for most of us, but less protective: Determine a list of disorders which legally incapacitate the sufferer from firearm purchase. Incorporate mandatory diagnosis reporting to the ATF (with 6 month intervals of retest, re diagnosis permitted).

I propose this because I don't think we can appropriately say that these are the acts of sick people, but not try to limit the access of those people to firearms. I know Lanza didn't buy the guns, but I feel either of these measures are good faith ground we can give to address what we see as the problem without having to endure what we know are ineffectual restrictions on specific firearm types.

Your thoughts please.

The biggest issue I have with any kind of "competency certification" is that it would be the subjective opinion of the interviewer, who may or may not be competent themselves. Secondarily, it reduces a Constitutionally guaranteed right to a privilege, reserved for a class to be determined by someone else, in this case a pawn of the government.
Thirdly, every psychiatrist I have ever had dealings with was crazier than a shithouse rat.

Psychiatrists and psychologists are already legally bound to report to law enforcement any patient that they deem to be a threat to themselves or others, yet they often fail to do so.




See, guys... it IS possible to reply to this kind of hogwash without having to swear. It's just difficult.

[Dave_L]

Once again, its the minority group (mentally unstable) dictating how the responsible ones get to live. Pretty soon, the only thing us "normies" will be good for is taxing us to pay for everyone else...oh wait.

[Bailey Guns]

Seems as if the statists have won over even our brethren. Infringing upon my rights and giving the ATF the ability to restrict everyones GOD GIVEN rights based on mental issues that are some of the hardest to understand in all of the health world (take a look at how mental retardation, down syndrome, etc have been viewed over the course of history) is horseshit. RESPONSIBILITY dammit! Everyone is pointing in every fucking direction after all this shit except at themselves. The answer isn't in banning video games, guns, music, media coverage, or requiring classification and certification for every act imaginable. The answer is providing some parenting and raising kids that aren't psychos in the first place. You're kid shoots a bunch of people? That is on YOU, you are a fucking terrible parent and a piece of shit. That other article about "I am name retracted's mother" got my blood boiling. You threaten to kill your parents and yourself and the punishment is a day without electronics? No fucking wonder kids don't give a damn about what you say or do anymore because the majority of parents out there have played their cards and shown they are ineffectual little pussies that are scared of their kids not liking them and actually punishing the little monsters they plopped out before letting them loose on the rest of us.

Well, you had me in your court until this bit of nonsense:

You're kid shoots a bunch of people? That is on YOU, you are a fucking terrible parent and a piece of shit.

I don't agree with that. At all. There are too many parents who raise multiple kids and 1 turns out to be a loser. Yes, the parents may share some of the blame in some cases or the bad kid might just be a bad kid. I've seen all too often as a cop parents trying to do their best and doing everything within their power to straighten out a pain in the ass kid and, despite their best efforts, it doesn't work.

A blanket statement like that is just as irresponsible as the lefties who say it's the gun that 's the problem.

[Waywardson174]

Thank you all for your kind and not so kind responses. Every discussion like this, including the swearing, is helpful to me. I undergo a daily barrage from a slew of surrounding liberals and I found myself at a loss for tact and talent when it came to these two proposals. It's hard to be the guy in the room who says "sometimes 20 six-year-olds die, and that's a cost of freedom." I guess I should have just fallen back on hard line freedom under the Constitution.

On the current issue of parentage, I find it hard to believe we can really put this on parents who didn't drop their kids at Auschwitz Daycare. Take Lanza herself. The other boy has no similar issues (that we know of). As the brother of a mentally retarded sister, there are definitely challenges faced dealing with special needs/ mentally disturbed children. My sister has none of the work ethic myself and my other siblings have. My parents strove to raise her as normally as the rest of us (her capacity is diminished but not altogether incompetent) but the lessons seem not to have taken hold. Is that because my parents dropped the ball? Or is it a larger issue of the message simply meeting an impermeable mind. I think the latter, but I'm no ATF approved psychiatrist.

[Irving]

You still have choices, pay to keep the nut in an institution, keep the nut out of your house, keep your guns locked up and make sure the nut doesn't know where the keys/combo are. I'm sure there are many other solutions.

Families no longer take care of their crazy offspring and relatives, they leave it up to the government. I'm preaching to the choir but GUESS WHAT - the government FAILS at almost every task it undertakes.

Not an option in my experience.

[losttrail]

Here's an idea... You need to sit down with a doctor every 6 months to see if you are mentally competent enough to speak freely.
See how stupid that sounds? Let's treat the 2nd just like the 1st... are there any laws that "reasonably restrict" the right to free speech, free press, and freedom of religion? NO! So why would we even allow even the slightest restriction (NFA) of the 2nd?

Actually.....yes, the 1st is also under attack.

HR 347 passed and signed in February 2012, updates a law from 1971 restricting protests in various specific locations, White House or its grounds, VP's residence or its grounds, and locations where the Secret Service is, thus you cannot protest anywhere Marxist-Muslim Obama is.

Add to this the restrictions of where people can or cannot pray, mention God, display the Ten Commandments, voice disapproval of M-MO, and you have an ever increasing assault of the 1st.

[Kmanbay]

Provide proof you are without mental defect? Shouldn't you be considered OK unless proven otherwise? Innocent until proven guilty lines of thought.

Who sets the standards, and how hard will it be to change once the framework is adopted?


This is an incredibly slippery slope leading right into taking your rights away. Remember the Bill of Rights doesn't give you rights, you are born with them. It restricts the government from infringing on these inalienable rights.