School shootings and gun control

[Dragline]

As long as they are locked up, that's usually sufficient. You are not really worried about people breaking in. You are locking them up to keep them out of the hands of people you live with or might invite into your home, like your children or grand-children. Put the ammo somewhere else, too.

One of my kids' friends father is a shooting instructor at Quantico. He keeps all of his firearms in locked cabinets. I'm perfectly comfortable with that. But I wouldn't let my kids go over there if he didn't.

[bottlerocks]

Right, locked and ammo in a second also locked location. I understand that people who want to steal your stuff are going to steal your stuff if they want it bad enough. However, I'd be curious to know if it works as a significant deterrent for kids and mentally ill people involved in gun violence.

I don't think owning an expensive gun safe is a crazy proposition if you're the owner of an expensive weapon. Full disclosure, I don't currently own a gun safe but if there were children in my household or crime was bad in my neck of the woods I sure as hell would. For now a locked closet works (plus my ammo for anything but sidearm is stored in another closet).

[Ego]

The United States is different in their fundamental mindset about liberties and freedoms. Always have been, always will.

The gay marriage issue has shown us how fast a fundamental mindset can change.

Stripping everyone who shows a symptom of a mental health issue of their civil rights is not going to blunt the real issue.

We already strip people with mental health issues of much larger fundamental civil rights using involuntary psychiatric holds. We lock them up for their own safety and the safety of others. Why can't we lock up the guns of people with mental problems? Why wouldn't it discourage these mass shootings?

[IlliniDave]

[quote="ffj]
The United States is different in their fundamental mindset about liberties and freedoms. Always have been, always will.

The gay marriage issue has shown us how fast a fundamental mindset can change.

Stripping everyone who shows a symptom of a mental health issue of their civil rights is not going to blunt the [real issue. /quote]

We already strip people with mental health issues of much larger fundamental civil rights using involuntary psychiatric holds. We lock them up for their own safety and the safety of others. Why can't we lock up the guns of people with mental problems? Why wouldn't it discourage these mass shootings?

[/quote]

The issue is what constitutes enough of a mental problem to go there? Whatever criteria we use now to "lock them up" does not prevent the homicides in question. What are the criteria? How do you obtain the evaluation? It's a slippery slope, I'm afraid.

And in the end these "psychos" commit a tiny fraction of all the homicides. So even if you could imprison all the people that might whack out before they have a chance to, or relegate them to the status of a felon a priori, you still have most of the homicides happening using illegal guns during street wars in the big cities where people fight over black market money (drugs, guns, and general vice).

[Riggerjack]

"Why can't we lock up the guns of people with mental problems? Why wouldn't it discourage these mass shootings?"

Since you ask, I'm going to assume you want to know, rather than simply trolling.

First, the standard for involuntary commitment is fairly high, demontrated danger to self or others. To my knowledge (limited, I don't put much effort into mass shooters) while there is a pattern of mental health issues tied to these losers, I don't think any of them had been committed then released, soon followed by a mass shooting. So, even if confiscating guns of the commited was standard practice, it probably wouldn't have ANY affect on mass shootings.

There's those pesky 4th and 5th amendments. Getting the guns means searching for them, 4th. Confiscating guns runs afoul of the 5th. No need to bring up the 2nd.

We (humans) have real problems with mental health issues. In that we don't know how to fix them. Our legal system doesn't deal with them well. As a society, we want people to contribute, and try to avoid stigmatizing people with labels that prevent them from participation.

You say these things about crazy people with guns, but imagine you are on the other side of that divide. Your ex, spinning drama during a break up, says things that cause you to be committed. OK, that sucks, but 3 days later, you are out. Distrustful, maybe a bit emotionally scarred, but free. Trying to put this behind you, telling work you had a family emergency, praying word doesn't get out. Now, wait, while you were in there, the cops took that as an opportunity to confiscate your guns. Hopefully, your sister let them in, and collected them, and handed them off to the local police. Or maybe, they hired a locksmith to open your door, and they searched your house, car, workplace, vacation property, etc. And now that you are out, you can deal with trying to get your stuff back, and perhaps the cost of confiscating your property.

Of course, it is then beyond conceiving that a cop might think of 5150 as a instant search warrant...

Google asset forfeiture for more on the can of worms that goes along with the government siezing assets at will. Gun owners will fight this tooth and nail.

The poor buggers going thru commitment have enough problems without your prejudiced issues piling on top.

[Ego]

If a person is unable to maintain sanity, a non-depressed, or non-anxious state without external means (medication) then he shouldn't have access to guns. My opinion. An opinion that seems to be getting more popular. This isn't prejudice. It is post-judging. They've already been determined to have mental problems.

Before leaving the US last year I was shooting once a week, every week, at the police range with two ex-professional trigger-pullers. The more I practice, it seems, the less accurate my aim. You've got to pass the NRA class (or be police/military trained) to shoot at the police range, which weeded out many of the yahoos. Despite that, one of the guys would often point to our fellow shooters and joke about how there seemed to be an inverse relationship between the size of a person's gun collection and his level of emotional maturity/stability. There were exceptions. But I agreed that it seemed to be the rule.

We recognize that children are not emotionally mature/stable enough to own handguns (with a few exceptions). A person with mental problems should have the same restrictions.

[Riggerjack]

So, ego, you think that a prescription should invalidate gun rights. I don't necessarily disagree. But the devil is in the details.

Antidepressants are often given as a "see if this helps" version of healthcare. You think that should trigger a need to sell off firearms? How much time should they have? How long before they can get them again? Or have they proven themselves unstable for life for following Dr.'s orders?

Like I said, I am not opposed to folks being labeled as incompetent, being forced to give up their guns. I just don't see that a even an influencing factor in the mass shootings. Nor a practical solution to any other problems.

It would be nice if it did, but in the real world, mental health is not as definitive as the reactionary want to believe.

Personally, I think the best option is to give advertiser the chance to opt out of advertising during broadcasts of mass shootings, as I proposed after Sandy hook. Treat mass shooters like the NFL treats personal fouls. Acknowledge that they happen, but don't get it airtime. Nobody should be made famous for spree killing.

[Ego]

Yes, but not sell off. Store them outside of the home until cured. Family members who want to use them can check them out but cannot take them home or possess them in the presence of the mentally ill person. Maybe a reevaluation after a year? Two years?

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015 ... .html?_r=0

Criminal histories and documented mental health problems did not prevent at least eight of the gunmen in 14 recent mass shootings from obtaining their weapons, after federal background checks led to approval of the purchases of the guns used.

That needs to change.

I agree 100% about the media.

[Riggerjack]

Ego, I'd like to site your same link to show exactly how little mental health and criminal screening has to do with spree killers.

When it comes to weapon control, it doesn't get tighter than an army base. I was company armorer. I was in charge of the arms doom, all the company arms, and all private arms belonging to company personnel. If you owned a private firearm, and lived on post, your gun was locked in a cabinet in my arms room. Every weapon was locked in a case locked in a reinforced concrete, alarmed arms room. You could access it after giving me 24 hours written notice,approved by the company commander. You were allowed to keep it until you completed whatever you wanted it for, then it must be turned in immediately to me. Failure to comply with every step was punishable under UCMJ.

If that isn't enough to stop a major (mental health professional, BTW) from spree killing, what makes you think any civilian restrictions will?

I went through the full list of your link, and the closest I saw to a background check problem was the Marysville kid who used his father's gun. I'm not surprised that the tulalip tribe failed to upload his offence to a Federal database but that is a local politics issue more than background check failure.

Better background checks will have nearly.no affection spree killers. Because spree killers tend to be young, and lack any kind of accomplishment, even criminal accomplishment.

[Chad]

Yes, we can learn from other countries policies and studies. Happy? Context is everything though.

Also, I think you are a bit optimistic that the options I listed would fly in the United States. Even extremely watered down versions. What I would like to see are individuals taking responsibility for their lives and if they can't, their families doing it for them. But there is an incredible amount of dysfunction that has to be overcome first. The government should not be the first place you look to for accountability.

Yes, happier.

I don't disagree that it would be long hard slog to get a lot of the stuff passed. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try and it doesn't mean it has to happen overnight. As Ego pointed out, the majority view on gay rights changed very quickly. I'm hoping the next domino is drugs or at least marijuana. If that were legalized it would save us a ton of money, make us a ton of money, and roughly cut the funding of the Mexican cartels by 50% (various estimates). All good for our long term future.

Ideally, it would be much better for the individuals to take more responsibility. Unfortunately, like a pure free market, it sounds good in theory but seems to fail in practice. Their still needs to be some policies to enforce or encourage (ideally encourage) appropriate practices.

If a person is unable to maintain sanity, a non-depressed, or non-anxious state without external means (medication) then he shouldn't have access to guns. My opinion. An opinion that seems to be getting more popular. This isn't prejudice. It is post-judging. They've already been determined to have mental problems.

I completely agree. This view does seem to be getting more popular, which isn't surprising. Urban populations, which experience and view guns much differently, are growing very fast, while rural populations are staying the same.

https://mogreenstats.files.wordpress.co ... -chart.jpg

Long-term I do think this and other factors could create a situation where we go overboard in firearms regulation. Better to start now with reasonable policies.

[IlliniDave]

If a person is unable to maintain sanity, a non-depressed, or non-anxious state without external means (medication) then he shouldn't have access to guns. My opinion. An opinion that seems to be getting more popular. This isn't prejudice. It is post-judging. They've already been determined to have mental problems.

I completely agree. This view does seem to be getting more popular, which isn't surprising. Urban populations, which experience and view guns much differently, are growing very fast, while rural populations are staying the same.

https://mogreenstats.files.wordpress.co ... -chart.jpg

Long-term I do think this and other factors could create a situation where we go overboard in firearms regulation. Better to start now with reasonable policies.

So we're saying what, that anyone who undergoes any sort of treatment for a mental/emotional issue must be turned in to the government (presumably by their doctor/healthcare provider) and be forced without due process to surrender some fraction of their constitutional rights? (It's not like there's not enough of a stigma attached to such issues that keep people who need help from getting it, might as well discourage even more people). Or is it that neighbors/friends/acquaintances and coworkers/associates should be the ones reporting people? Heck, if I knew a guy who ate lentils for weeks at a time or went all permaculture, desired to be mostly off the grid, was hoarding wealth without spending money the way an emotionally well-adjusted person would, maybe preferred to live in remote places, had no interest in maintaining productive employment, bought cheap clothes from the army surplus store, made his own soap and was otherwise weird and nonconformist; I might suspect he was mentally/emotionally unstable and apt to go all violent separatist any minute. Best turn him in, right.

[Chad]

Heck, if I knew a guy who ate lentils for weeks at a time or went all permaculture, desired to be mostly off the grid, was hoarding wealth without spending money the way an emotionally well-adjusted person would, maybe preferred to live in remote places, had no interest in maintaining productive employment, bought cheap clothes from the army surplus store, made his own soap and was otherwise weird and nonconformist; I might suspect he was mentally/emotionally unstable and apt to go all violent separatist any minute. Best turn him in, right.

Amusing, but it wouldn't be up to the person turning the other in to decide, it would be up to a psychiatrist/psychologist. In the case you highlight, it might even stop before the experts. The police would have no real evidence to force this person to even go for an evaluation. This is unlike Ego's previous example where there were plenty of witnesses of the tenant's abnormal behavior. So, of course, you would have to have rules and standards. And, of course, there would be mistakes both ways. There are always outliers when dealing with a population this large.

[Sclass]

I've followed the British FAC certification process after taking up airguns.

http://riflesunlimited.co.uk/fac_application

It's not really a ban, but rather tight control. And, it weeds out the yahoos as Ego put it. The referee process and police interview process (in your living room) would stop the crazies dead in their tracks.

I wouldn't want to go through it myself but it would put a lot of the mass shooting crimes to rest. Good points here though that these crimes are horrific but a small percentage of America's gun violence. Thanks to the media and politics.

I think anything can be stopped. Look at Japan. A close friend was a competitive shooter there. She loves visiting me here (in the us) and shooting my air rifles in the basement. She has a lot of trouble staying competitive when she has to go to the police station, pick up her air rifle, take it to the range, then check it back in when she's done. I would not like my access to my arms limited in this way.

Gun confiscations also work. I have a family friend in Germany that maintained an illegal hoard into the 80s. He started hoarding after WW2 and it just got riskier and riskier. I don't care what people say about not being able to collect up all the guns, collecting a lot of them and reducing the incidence of discharge is possible with draconian moves. Again, not something I'd like to happen to my personal collection or in my home country.

[Sclass]

Aww man this reminds me of a good story. I take care of my aging mom and visit her in our family home. One night while I'm sleeping over I get a faint knock on the door. A guy shows up and says I saw the light on and I decided to knock. "I'd been walking by for years and didn't have the courage to knock."

"Um who are you?" I say. He's my dad's friend from 30 odd years ago he says. He explains he knew me when I was a little boy. I invite him in for a chat and tea. He tells me how he was an engineer like me. How he lost his job. He got hospitalized for mental issues. How he lost his guns.

Then I start remembering he was an NRA instructor. And I start getting flashbacks of going hunting with him as a kid. He was one my dad's "cool" friends.

Now he's an obviously mentally ill dude knocking on our door in the middle of the night. It was obvious he had serious issues. He seemed to be medicated on some kind of blocker.

He started dry sobbing about how they crushed his 1911 collection. I was starting to get worried but then he finally left.

No real opinion here but there's a confiscation story about a guy who got ill and lost his guns.

[Riggerjack]

@ inllinidave, just my point. Look at the "criminal history and mental issues" that slipped through the cracks in the NYT article.
One guy was charged, not convicted with a misdemeanor drug charge.
One guy's father was under a domestic violence protection order. In Washington state, that would stop him from getting a concealed pistol permit. Not preclude firearms ownership.
One did 4 months in Iraq, and suffered from military medicine... And couldn't sleep.
One was a reservist (warning sign!) With an honorable discharge, and suffered from military medicine. Stopped from buying an assault rifle, I'm guessing by the price, used a shotgun.
Lanza was untreated for anything with no criminal history, another clear warning sign!
Another got drunk, kicked some holes in sheetrock, listened to music, then 18 years later, bought a gun.
Holmes was a grad student, and seeing a psychiatrist, honestly, why was he free to roam the streets?
The next guy had no mental or criminal history.
"Mr. Wong had been arrested, cited or had some minor contact with the police at least five times since 1990, but details about the cases remain unclear." That sounds so much more ominous than "had been pulled over 5 times in 19 years."

Oh, and then there is the other 6, of the arbitrary 14, that showed no history worthy of hysterics.

Seriously, if the net is tight enough to catch these guys, who among us would pass? I haven't been pulled over in over 10 years, never charged with anything, no mental history, but I was labeled as "socially retarded" by a middle school guidance counselor I never met, at a school I attended for 4 months. Maybe I should be forced to disarm...

[GandK]

After having been depressed myself: it's not the guys on pills that I'm worried about. At all. It's the undiagnosed, and the guys who don't take the pills they've been prescribed. Manic-depressives are notorious for this. They get on an upswing and think "I'm all better now... I don't need my meds anymore." And they just stop taking them. I'm also concerned about college students in their first year away from home, whose parents made sure they took their meds for depression/anxiety/ADHD as prescribed when they lived at home. But they're either too immature or too distracted to do it themselves once they're away at school. How can we better identify those who do need mental health treatment but aren't receiving it?

I think we could get around the issue of flagging the mentally ill by having a second checkpoint in the process. What if a doctor were to notify some sort of oversight committee when someone begins certain types of mental health treatment? That person would not be allowed to own/use guns. But then a second notification would be sent by a doctor in order to remove the oversight once the person had been symptom-free for a while and was therefore free to own/use weapons again?

It looks like the shooters all have at least 3 of the following symptoms in common:
* males
* between ages 12 and 52 (puberty and meno/andro pause)
* who have a mental illness
* who have been marginalized in some way

Any other major risk factors I missed? And how could society focus on prevention in these people without them feeling marginalized even more?

Speaking of violence prevention, I read this BBC article last night: Building the Pentagon's 'Like me' Weapon (The US military's foray into neurobiological research, and some possible applications.)

[Riggerjack]

I still say the only practical solution is the opt out clause for advertisers. That won't stop the next spree killer. But, I imagine a Facebook campaign along the lines of:

My daughter (pic of daughter) was killed by XYZ, because he wanted to be famous. CNN featured him and his actions for 217 hours if airtime. Corporation ABC payed 17 million to sponsor that time.

That would echo in the board rooms across the world. And the spree kill after that would get a lot less airtime. No censorship, just allow corporations the option of opting out of sponsoring coverage.

Stop making these losers famous, and they can go back to sulking in mom's basement.

Trying to screen these guys out is a red herring. We don't have the medical knowledge to do it, even if we could, we have huge barriers in the legal system.

Remove the incentive, and let this problem die on the vine.

[Dragline]

It looks like the shooters all have at least 3 of the following symptoms in common:
* males
* between ages 12 and 52 (puberty and meno/andro pause)
* who have a mental illness
* who have been marginalized in some way

Any other major risk factors I missed? And how could society focus on prevention in these people without them feeling marginalized even more?

Yes, I don't think its mental illness as commonly defined is necessarily the issue, because it includes a lot of relatively harmless depressed people. You are more looking for the zero-empathy types who have difficulty relating to other people as people and not objects. This includes autistic/Asperger types like the Sandy Hook shooter and the latest one in addition to the classic psychotics (people who hallucinate) like the Aurora one.

People whose mental states prevent them from interacting well enough with society to support themselves is kind of my common-sense guideline, although I realize its not implementable on a practical or legal scale.

But a public relations campaign along the lines of anti-smoking efforts, prevent forest fires or "see something, say something" might actually prevent a few of these.

I blame this mother as much as I blame her disturbed son who had no business being anywhere near a firearm: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/06/us/mo ... earms.html

[Riggerjack]

"But a public relations campaign along the lines of anti-smoking efforts, prevent forest fires or "see something, say something" might actually prevent a few of these."

Or, a lifetime of extroverts pigeonholing every introvert as a potential spree killer increases the incidents. If you are going to be painted by that brush, regardless, you might as well get the fame...

Again, fame is the reward. In depth speculative articles are not written in the NYT about the driver who causes the car accident with the same body count. Hell, you can't get this much research in a NYT article about a government policy they endorsed. They do it because we will read it, and if we read it, they can sell the advertising. Because we read it, the next loser is inspired to go out in flaming glory.

[Jean]

I like Riggerjack's suggestion very much.
But I really think that effort should be putt on not outcasting people in the first place....