Allowing Mentally Unstable People To Restrict Their Own Ability To Buy Guns
Law profs Ian Ayres and Fredrick Vars write in the LA Times about a "firearm choice" law awaiting signature in the state of Washington:
The idea is simple: Give people who believe that they may become a risk to themselves or others a way to put distance between themselves and firearms. Under the new law, Washington citizens can add their names to a do-not-sell list, thereby suspending their ability to buy guns from licensed dealers.Legislative consensus around this program was achievable because the measure is entirely voluntary. No one is taking away anyone's right to bear arms.
Adding your name to the list does not have to be a permanent choice. Those who sign up can later change their minds. They need only make the request and wait seven days. The Washington law in essence gives people the right to opt in to a waiting period.
Two recent studies have shown that purchase delays are effective in reducing suicide. Waiting periods work because suicide is often impulsive. Even if someone turned away at a gun dealership attempts suicide using another method, he is much more likely to survive than if he'd used a firearm. And only 10% of people who survive a suicide attempt go on to die by self-harm.
Washington will be the first to enact a firearm choice law, but legislators in California and three other states have introduced versions of it. Some would make the waiver more durable by having participants wait up to three weeks before their rescission becomes effective, or by having them convince a judge or a psychiatrist that they are not a risk to themselves or others.
Participants can also designate people to be notified by email if they remove themselves from the list.
And then there's this:
Two months before the Parkland massacre, the suspected shooter, Nikolas Cruz, called 911 and told the dispatcher that he "kind of got mad, and I started punching walls." Cruz's call to 911 was a cry for help. If the dispatcher had given him the option to temporarily waive his right to purchase and possess firearms, he, like hundreds of people in our studies, might have voluntarily disarmed.
Here's more information on the law and an example of how it was used.
Gummint ain't Daddy.
Crid at March 12, 2018 10:59 PM
Christ. What a load of crap. "Hey, look, a form to fill out! It means I can be my own little Gun Free Zone™ !"
One more way for the desperate to shift blame. Anyone but they are responsible.
Any word on how they make sure it's YOU who adds your name to the list?
Any word on penalties for violating this? You want to Constitutionally incriminate yourself?
PLEASE look at the Form 4473 pdf. It's what a dealer has to ask you.
Meanwhile, this is the USA. Nothing prevents you from stealing someone else's gun and using it.
Want to hear a truly terrifying thing, that should have you squealing in a puddle of your own sweat? No person may be prohibited from a first offense. Gee, if we could just get that whole, "innocent until proven guilty" thing out of the way everywhere, not just on airplanes...
Also, should you look at who gets prosecuted for possession violations under Federal law... you'll be disappointed. Somehow, they just can't be bothered to enforce those laws.
Radwaste at March 13, 2018 3:47 AM
Oh, yeah - one more thing this might illuminate...
Years ago, CNN ran a bulletin board at CNN.com. One of the hottest topics was the thread, "Guns Under Fire". Apparently, CNN thought they could gin up a buncha support for gun control, but while it lasted it was the best place on the planet to see and expose the ridicuous things people thought about the law, guns and just plain reality.
I saved about 98MB of text. CNN dropped the whole thing because it wasn't making either their point for them or any money.
To the point... A common complaint was this one, repeated dozens of times by gun-control advocates:
"If I had a gun, I'd probably kill somebody."
So, Reasoning Deficit Disorder has been with us at least that long. I leave it to you to figure out why people would think that.
Radwaste at March 13, 2018 3:57 AM
.... and the youthinasia movement started with pity-mongering about people wanting to put themselves out of terrible pain. Now they are killing people without even asking them.
Sorry this can be abused in so many ways by the powerful. It is an on-ramp to further restriction - and for sending people to re-education camps.
Ben David at March 13, 2018 5:39 AM
“Any word on how they make sure it's YOU who adds your name to the list”
Let me guess, getting on the list will be free. Getting off a 100 buck fee.
I think the goal is to add everyone’s name to the list eventually, and make you pay to opt out, Neat little end run around the second amendment brought to you by oh so clever socialists.
Isab at March 13, 2018 5:43 AM
So, the very same government agencies that failed to protect the public from Nikolas Cruz are going to succeed with people who voluntarily add themselves to a government list and request to be removed from it?
The proposed Gun Violence Restraining Order is a more workable option. However, even the GVRO relies on government agencies functioning competently.
When government agencies fail - the Air Force to report a dischargee's string of domestic violence charges or the sheriff's department to monitor a known threat - government-reliant solutions fail. What does the government solutions crowd propose people do then? Run, Hide, Fight. Fight? With what?
If your self-control is that unreliable, then you might want to restrict your ownership of knives, axes, and piano wires, too. Also, steer clear of lead pipes, ropes, and candlesticks.
Conan the Grammarian at March 13, 2018 5:53 AM
> Cruz's call to 911 was
> a cry for help.
"A cry for help" is a term of the intimate arts. A "call to 911" is reliance on impersonal government.
The worst of America is the conflation of those domains.
Crid at March 13, 2018 5:54 AM
Are you, by chance, a fan of a certain cleverly-named no wave band, Ben David?
Or are you referring to euthanasia, the painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease or in an irreversible coma?
Conan the Grammarian at March 13, 2018 6:02 AM
Amplifying Uncle Cridmo:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/11/radio-dave-ramsey-2018-trump-217229
Remember, LEO has no duty to defend any of us. But we should disarm because trust them? Feel free to scribble out "president" and substitute in any other elected or unelected government official.
I R A Darth Aggie at March 13, 2018 10:44 AM
Well, damn. I forgot to rant about the massive distortion present here.
Gun purchase is not the real issue anywhere. Gun possession and use is.
What happens when the declared mental defective gets in a car with a concealed carry permit holder who has to leave her gun in the car to go into the gun-free mall? What happens when said defective visits someone else's home and there is a gun inside?
One more thing:
When, not if, the state or Federal database of who has declared themselves unfit to arm themselves is hacked, a list of who cannot be armed will appear.
Hey, look, a pre-formatted, searchable list of ready-made victims!
Radwaste at March 13, 2018 1:36 PM
You, the gun owner, are responsible for storing your gun safely. So, just to be safe, assume all your guests are mental defectives and lock your gun up when you have guests.
The concealed carrier (driver) can lock the gun in the trunk, the console storage bin, or the glove box; or the locking storage box under the driver's seat.
It's a gun. By carrying it you've accepted a terrible responsibility.
Conan the Grammarian at March 13, 2018 2:11 PM
Here’s a question: If you are mentally ill enough to be a danger to yourself and others, but also sane enough to know you need help:
instead of getting on the *no guns sales list* why arent you checking yourself into a psychiatric ward?
And what infinitesimally small sub set of the population do you think a voluntary registry like this will help?
Should there also be a *no car sales list* if you have fanatisies about jamming your foot down on the acelerator and driving it into a crowd?
Wouldn't this be just about as effective as a no gun sales list, because buying one, is only one of a mulititude of ways to get a gun? Or a car?
Somehow I am suspicious that this is just a smokescreen for another government campaign to try and convice the soft headed snowflake soccer moms out there, that you are defacto mentally ill, if you even think about wanting a gun.
What better illustration of *toxic masculinity*? Men like guns. Guns must be bad, and dangerous.
Isab at March 13, 2018 5:08 PM
On the surface sounds ok, but can see it being abused...
For an increased letter grade in my class show proof that you signed up for...
If you loved me you'd...
How long before it is routinely offered or attached to restraining orders or bail requests.
Joe J at March 13, 2018 7:29 PM
"why arent you checking yourself into a psychiatric ward?"
Because you have no money and no one else is willing to pay for you.
It is seriously hard to get into a mental ward these days. There are a few state run ones. And they kick you out after a few months no matter what. They just don't have the beds. If you want a private one then you have to pay and crazy people locked up in an institution don't tend to make a lot of money.
Ben at March 13, 2018 8:04 PM
I predict that both cops and courts will quickly find underhanded ways to force onto these lists all kinds of people whose looks they happen to dislike. (And to punish them if they ever de-list themselves.)
jdgalt at March 13, 2018 8:48 PM
“It is the greatest absurdity to suppose it [would be] in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defense of those very rights; the principal of which…are life, liberty, and property. If men through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.”
Samuel Adams, Life of Samuel Adams.
Jay J. Hector at March 13, 2018 9:54 PM
"It's a gun. By carrying it you've accepted a terrible responsibility."
Yes, yes, yes. Now: notice that in addition to signing up to reject your right to arm yourself, you now have to inform everyone who might have a gun they now have to do extra things to keep theirs away from you, the registered mentally incompetent.
What fun. Not only do you hang a big "gun free zone" sign on yourself and your residence (which might have a bunch of tasty and negotiable psychoactive drugs inside), you've just hung a "keep away" sign on yourself.
There aren't enough words in English to say how stupid this is.
Radwaste at March 14, 2018 10:11 AM
And this list will be maintained on a server, yes?
So it will be hackable.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at March 14, 2018 10:36 AM
I agree that it's a nutty idea, that a person cannot trust himself enough to keep away from guns to the degree that he has to ask the government to keep guns away from him.
And yes, that does raise the question as to whether that puts an obligation on legal gun owners to restrict that person's access to firearms - to protect people who admit they cannot control their own urges and will not protect themselves.
Is this just a way of absolving oneself from responsibility - "I don't have to protect myself and others because I'm on a government list. It's someone else's job."
This list also raises the question that if the government, and legal gun owners, are obligated through this list to protect people from themselves, what happens if someone on the list gets ahold of a gun and hurts someone or himself? Who's liable then?
Problem is, I've been around enough legal owners who were idiots. One pointed a loaded .357 at me while showing it off. When asked to point that thing somewhere else, he assured me he knew what he was doing and I was safe with him. Did I mention that we'd been drinking and he was pretty plastered at the time. I was not.
From my experiences, I've adopted a default of acting as if everyone who comes into my house is an idiot and things like guns need to be secured or at least hidden away.
Conan the Grammarian at March 14, 2018 11:25 AM
From my experiences, I've adopted a default of acting as if everyone who comes into my house is an idiot and things like guns need to be secured or at least hidden away.
Conan the Grammarian at March 14, 2018 11:25 AM
From my experience, that sounds like a safe bet.
I'm working to idiot-proof my life, and it's humbling how much thought, time, and energy it takes to the create clarity of processes and procedures, and good habits, that can prevent disasters or support one in responding to them.
Michelle at March 17, 2018 1:02 AM
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