Ishmael
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Nov 24, 2001
- Posts
- 84,005
You, and I, and virtually every pro second amendment organization agree that the mentally ill should NOT be allowed to have firearms in their possession or access to same. Period.
The odds are overwhelmingly against congress passing an amendment that alters the second amendment and even if they do the odds of state ratification are virtually zero.
To complicate matters starting in the late 1970's through the 1990's that ACLU brought a series of cases before the Supreme Court on 5ht amendment grounds regarding the incarceration of the mentally ill. The results of these SCOTUS decisions virtually emptied the various states mental institutions and made the process of stripping and individual of their rights based on mental disabilities an extraordinary long and expensive process.
This obviously sets up a conflict between the rights of the mentally ill, the rights of the citizen to arms, and the desire of ALL of us to be safe from the mentally ill to cause us and themselves harm.
So, how do you resolve those conflicts? Require that all gun owners under go a psychiatric examination? How do you insure that such an examination is unbiased? And even if the individual is determined by the mental health professional to be disqualified the SCOTUS cases referred to still require that a court strip the individual of their rights. And even if that requirement is fulfilled what means will be put in place for the individual to challenge the decision? And who is going to pay for all of this? We still operate under the notion of 'presumption of innocence.'
Perhaps Col. Hogan will chime in from the legal perspective. The problem is a thorny one and the solution(s) are not going to be simplistic.
Ishmael
The odds are overwhelmingly against congress passing an amendment that alters the second amendment and even if they do the odds of state ratification are virtually zero.
To complicate matters starting in the late 1970's through the 1990's that ACLU brought a series of cases before the Supreme Court on 5ht amendment grounds regarding the incarceration of the mentally ill. The results of these SCOTUS decisions virtually emptied the various states mental institutions and made the process of stripping and individual of their rights based on mental disabilities an extraordinary long and expensive process.
This obviously sets up a conflict between the rights of the mentally ill, the rights of the citizen to arms, and the desire of ALL of us to be safe from the mentally ill to cause us and themselves harm.
So, how do you resolve those conflicts? Require that all gun owners under go a psychiatric examination? How do you insure that such an examination is unbiased? And even if the individual is determined by the mental health professional to be disqualified the SCOTUS cases referred to still require that a court strip the individual of their rights. And even if that requirement is fulfilled what means will be put in place for the individual to challenge the decision? And who is going to pay for all of this? We still operate under the notion of 'presumption of innocence.'
Perhaps Col. Hogan will chime in from the legal perspective. The problem is a thorny one and the solution(s) are not going to be simplistic.
Ishmael