Who else sees this as another "slippery slope"?
[url]www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/020401/usnews/1guns.htm[/url]


[b]Guns and the Mentally Ill[/b]

For much of his life, Otto Nuss has struggled with mental illness. Back in the 1970s, he committed himself to a psychiatric hospital, and he has long taken medication for depression and anxiety. Two months ago, the 63-year-old school bus driver, who friends say had gone off his medication, burst into the national news when he inexplicably took off with his busload of terrified schoolchildren on a seven-hour odyssey from Pennsylvania to a Washington, D.C., suburb. When Nuss was apprehended, there was a loaded semiautomatic rifle on the bus, and authorities later found 48 weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition in his home.

While Nuss's alarming journey garnered headlines (and kidnapping charges), relief over the safe recovery of the 13 children overshadowed questions about his gun ownership. But as authorities know, mental illness and guns can be a tragic combination. Just a week earlier, for instance, Michael Burgess, who suffered from depression, fatally shot four family members and then himself outside Philadelphia with a 9-mm semiautomatic handgun. Among those killed: his 14-year-old stepdaughter, a standout honors student who sang in the chorus, danced ballet, and ran track.

As that shooting and others show, gun control laws do little to prevent seriously mentally ill people from buying guns. But it's not just gun rights advocates, such as the National Rifle Association, who oppose substantial new restrictions. Mental health specialists worry about unfairly painting the mentally ill as violent, and even some gun control advocates fear that tighter rules would compromise privacy rights and doctor-patient confidentiality.

As a result, the line remains where it was set more than 30 years ago. The 1968 Gun Control Act narrowly bars people from buying or possessing firearms if they have been adjudicated mentally "defective" or have been involuntarily committed to a mental institution. When Burgess bought the gun at a pawnshop last October, he answered no to questions on a form asking if he had been adjudicated mentally "defective" or committed to a mental institution. That's true, but he had been clinically depressed and on medication, and he later went to a hospital for psychiatric help. Last fall, David Serra, 28, walked into a federal building in Detroit, pulled a .357-caliber Magnum revolver, and allegedly fatally shot an officer at a security checkpoint. He had been diagnosed as paranoid and delusional, had been taking medication, and had sought help from a psychiatric hospital, prosecutors say. He, too, was able to answer no on the questionnaire when he bought the gun at a hunting goods store shortly before the shooting.


See the rest of the article at the above link...

As long as there are checks and balances in the system I would not have a problem.


Remember you are the guy that might be down range of a nutbar at the club.

I hear voices all the time, whats the big deal?

"The leprachun in the corner tells me to burn things"

c-rock

I don't know, it seems to work for many on this board...

No guns for nutbars. No bus driving either.

The same people who were "questioning" his gun ownership probably have no problem with the whack job driving YOUR kids to school.

Just work in a Physic ward for about a month and you will be able to come up with the answer yourself. If you can't get the joy of doing this take it from someone who worked in one for over a year.

Hell no they should not have guns!!!! Well you might tell me with med's they get better right? A lot of them do especially manic depressives and skitso's. But a lot of these people think after a month or so that there better they don't need the med's then when the med's leave the body thats when they go crazy.

Most people in the government think we are all a little nuts.

'nuff said.

HAHAHAHAHA

Yes, I realize this, and agree with you.  I feel safer knowing a mentally deranged person is unarmed too.  

But when it comes to actually writing [i]laws[/i] on the matter, that's when it goes a little too far.  What about the law in CT; the "Turn in Your Neighbor" bill?  Good example that these types of laws do not work.  

Who is to judge what is considered mentally ill?  Hell, we might end up with a [i]1984[/i]-style definition of insanity.

HAYELL NO!! No guns for nutjobs!

But... where do we draw the line here?

Sociopaths
Paranoid Delusionals
Psychotics & schizophrenics
Manic/depressives
Explosive Personality Disorders
Mentally Retarded
Sex Offenders
Obsessive/compulsives
Senile Dementias
Drug Addict/Junkies
Alcoholics
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders
Anti-social Personality Disorders
Autistics
Tourette's Syndromes
Rage-aholics
ADD/ADHD/Dyslexics
Anxiety Disorders
Phobias
Borderline Personality Disorders

there are already laws against mentally deficient people owning firearms.

do they work???

I would be denied based on a mental disorder called "Gunloveritus" [whacko] [uzi]

What kind of gun did Andrea Yates use to kill her kids? Oh yeah, she used water.

Chances are as long as guns are in the hands of the public, there will most likely be some nut who will use the gun to cause harm. I am willing to live with that chance, BECAUSE it means that I too have the opportunity to own a gun as a defense against that among many other threats.

The slippery slope rule applies. Legislation (and the mindset in certain circles) is moving towards coming up with ways to disqualify people from owning guns by looking at certain risk factors, which do not necessarily mean that person would actual act on what the risk factor says that person is "predisposed". Just think if one day, the powers that be come up with a psychological test to identify who should be barred from owning a gun? I suspect anyone with a bad temper would be barred. Get my drift?

Eventually, we may find ourselves only permited to use plastic knives and forks, dictated by extreme governmental controls. Scary. Just look at the banning of BB Guns in certain areas. Funny, I grew up shooting my BB Gun and never had a problem (That's because my dad would have whipped my Ass if anything happened!!) He didnt need the government telling him how to police my BB Gun.

Ditto. My "stint" as an orderly lasted 6.5 years.

Practically all chronically afflicted psych. patients have extreme difficulty keeping to any Rx'd med regimen. Often, they will follow it for some length of time, then forego it, whereafter they begin to decompensate and spiral back down to their former self. Unfortunately, most adults can not be detained against their own will unless/until they pose a threat to themselves &/or others. While this may seem reasonable enough, it actually allows for an individual to slide a [u]long[/u] [u]way[/u] (mentally) before s/he can be forcibly detained. Most chronic psych cases are typified by this pattern.

I'd like almost nothing more than to see the problem completely eradicated, but the reality is, we are a long way from that nirvana. In truth, guns are a pointless topic to relate them to, because mental illness compromises most every convenience offered in modern life. I wouldn't trust most schizophrenic, psychotic, manically depressed (or similar types of) patients with practically [u]anything[/u], let alone a firearm. And, it most definitely should [b]not[/b] be used as a standard for formulating legal constructs.

If you get nothing else from this thread, thank God every day that you aren't afflicted the way some folks are. Mental illness is an ugly, sometimes brutal, dimension of life that most are utterly ignorant of.

It is a sad fact of socialist society that far too many of these headcases are walking around loose.  Just ask me; I was married to one for 10 hellish years!!  Need more proof?  Look at the "homeless" bums.

I guess we must let them have guns - theyalready have cars, knives and bathtubs.  At times I think several hundred of them hold elective office in Washington DC!!

It's a dame sad thing to see someone who can even trust there own mind anymore. What's more scary is it could happen to you me anyone and you would not know.

I don't know the answer but if I was a nut case guns wouldn't be the only thing available {I said if!}

Thanks to groups like the ACLU, any psycho can get a gun even with a thorough background check. Just about all mental health records are sealed only to be opened by a judge. Determining the current mental health of a potential buyer is completely left up to the buyer, answering yes or no on a piece of paper. How stupid is that? That is how John Hinkley passed a 14 day waiting period/background check with flying colors, as well as the Long Island Subway shooter "Colin Ferguson" also a 14 day b/g check , that mental mutant that killed Rebecca Schaeffer and so on and so forth.

We clearly have these people on this board now and they all have guns! [shock] But where do we draw the line...these people drive, operate machinery,fly and etc. Damn, I'm scarring myself!