Police must report psych patients to gun bureau

[SecularMotion]

On the day of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn. on Dec. 14, 2012, Suffolk County Legislator Kara Hahn (D-Setauket) had been visiting her daughter's kindergarten class, celebrating Hope's birthday.

Having just read to a group of adorable and enthusiastic 5- and 6-year-olds, Hahn recalled, "When I left and heard about the tragedy, obviously being an elected official, I thought about what can I do."

What she did was meet with the Legislature's counsel and the head of the county Pistol Licensing Bureau. Together they wrote a bill, which the Legislature passed unanimously on Tuesday, requiring police officers in Suffolk to notify the Pistol Licensing Bureau of all patients taken involuntarily to a hospital emergency room for psychiatric reasons. The patients will be reported to the bureau whether they are brought to Stony Brook University Hospital's Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Program, which is usually the case, said Hahn, or to other area hospitals in the county.

If there is a match between the patient's name or home address and the gun registry, she said, the Pistol Licensing Bureau could then investigate whether the gun license should be revoked or suspended. Since shotguns and rifles are not registered in the county, only pistols or handguns are covered by the law.

http://www.northshoreoflongisland.com/Articles-News-i-2013-03-07-95446.112114-sub-Police-must-report-psych-patients-to-gun-bureau.html

[gejohnston]

1. If the patients were ruled by a judge

as being "mentally defective" is prohibited from possessing a firearm under the Gun Control Act.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. By far the most common reason for involuntary psychiatric detentions

is suicidal depression.

It often recurs. I think this law could save a few lives on the one hand, but make it harder to detain and/or commit people on the other hand. It puts more consequences on the detention than before, thereby placing weight against doing it. That might also cost lives.

In general (and with some exceptions), mental illness is not in itself a predisposing condition for violence, and the detention stage is a lousy point at which to try to assess whether or not someone is qualified for a CCW license.

Overall, I think it will turn out to be a bad law.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

3. agreed. how do you think, if any, a law should be written and carried out to separate

the violent sector from a gun? thanks.

[Jackpine Radical]

4. As it happens, I'm pretty familiar with the scientific literature

on violence risk prediction.

The essential prediction problem arises from the fact that the base-rate of violence is very low, so it's just about impossible to set up criteria that would not include a large number of "false positives."

Say, for example, 1 person in 10,000 will commit an act of gun violence in their lifetime.

Now suppose you have a risk assessment tool that is capable of identifying those who are 10 times more likely to shoot somebody than is the average person (in fact, there ARE no instruments that good. But just suppose).

So, what do you do? Refuse a gun to anyone who is identified as high-risk (i.e.?10 times more likely) to use it for illegal violence?

Given these made-up but maybe not unrealistic statistics, you would be denying the weapon to 1,000 people for every one who is likely to reoffend.

And that leaves you with the false negatives--those who, though identified as less likely to kill, pass your screen, get the gun and then kill someone with it despite your prediction.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

5. sounds like the numbers are advocating that there is no need for laws ..

how do you interpret that extrapolation?

[Jackpine Radical]

6. I'm just presenting the statistical realities.

It seems to me, though, that the notion of approaching the problem by blacklisting people who undergo mental health detentions is wrong-headed.

I think that our violence problem has deep cultural roots. We have a terribly violent society and, at all levels, from the personal to the international, we see violence as a solution to our problems. Our culture is permeated with it. I know all the arguments against blaming video games and movies and TV. The Japanese, it is often pointed out, have all those same influences. Yet they don't have murder rates anything like ours. I will also point out that they haven't been in a war since 1945. It seems that they use all those violent stimuli as a fantasy outlet for their aggression rather than as an incitement to action. They also, of course, have tight gun control laws.

There is probably something to be gained by limiting access to weapons; the experiences of other countries has shown that. Australia is a great example.

There is also the issue of whether we're addressing "garden-variety" instrumental street murders, which are common, or mass killings, which are actually rare (believe it or not!) albeit devastating and tragic when they happen. Most street murders are accomplished with handguns, and don't require a lot of rounds. Assault-weapons bans don't really seem to address the issue very well. Nonetheless, I see no particular use for the damned things and wouldn't mind seeing them banned, or restricted in magazine size, or whatever. (I say this as a lifelong hunter and gun owner who grew up in a rural culture where everyone hunted and seldom did anyone shoot anyone else, at least on purpose.)

In reality, eliminating handguns would do more to reduce our murder rate than trying to restrict rifle magazine size or whatever. However, this would be wildly unpopular--unpopular for the very reason that we should do it; that is, we are a highly violent culture and getting more so, and it is awfully hard to conceal a deer rifle on your person.

As a compromise on handguns, I would suggest banning semi-automatic pistols but leaving revolvers legal. Revolvers are limited to 5 or 6 rounds, except for a few 9-shot .22's, which are plinking guns. They are also pretty slow to reload. You generally have to push a latch button, swing the cylinder out, extract the spent cartridges, and replace them in the cylinder one by one.

[gejohnston]

8. Actually Australia isn't that great of an example

because the murder rate was dropping before, and continued to drop at the same rate afterward. Gun control issue didn't become in issue until several mass shootings during a 12 year period, starting with seven casualties in a shoot out between two biker gangs and ending with Port Author. Prior to that string, there was one.

"Assault weapons" are becoming the modern "tactical to practical" and old Fudds like us should just deal the younger generation using them like we accept their taste in music.

[Jackpine Radical]

10. Our murder rates are going down too.

[gejohnston]

11. yes they are

[MicaelS]

17. I guess you have never heard of revolver speedloaders?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedloader

HKS is one of the biggest sellers of these. Safariland is another.

Watch at the 2:00 minute mark how fast this guy is.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

7. but, you just said in post #4

The essential prediction problem arises from the fact that the base-rate of violence is very low

I am confused ....

[Jackpine Radical]

9. It IS low.

I'm suggesting that "mental health" lists won't help much. I also think that part of the problem is our violent culture. I think that if we could eliminate pistols in particular, we would reduct street killings, just as has happened in other countries, and that this would be a lot less intrusive than putting people on lists. I also have no compunctions about limiting magazine sizes on any firearm, although I don't think it would help much.

In reality, I think that we need to change our cultural values concerning killing, but that is even harder to do than eliminating certain classes of firearms.

Edited to add--

It's a lot harder to predict which individual will commit a murder than it is to predict that a pistol will be involved. Thus I maybe ought to direct my efforts at controlling the latter rather than the former.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

12. violent comparatively speaking ... not so much ...according to this wiki chart "By subregion"

scroll down to find the By Subregion ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

we have pockets of violent areas, true but, by and large .... not so much.

[Eleanors38]

14. Thanks for the link.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

15. yw

[Eleanors38]

13. When someone is adjudicated mentally deficient, to the point...

where they are prevented from purchasing a firearm thru NICS, what usually characterizes the mental deficiencies?

[Tuesday Afternoon]

16. this is not easy to do ... in my understanding ... at this point the person can not be able to write

a check ... can't drive ... can't do simple at home tasks ... etc.

maybe it changes from state to state.

[Eleanors38]

18. It may be of benefit to compile the adjudication findings in all states

to see what comes up most.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

19. ow.

anybody ....

[Eleanors38]

20. I meant the findings of everyone who was denied thru NICS for mental incapacity...

Maybe that is too huge a figure. If all were compiled, and there was a pattern for denial, then there could be a chance at codifying a definition of mental incompetency, though that would be slim.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

21. I don't even know how to begin searching and compiling that data. do you?

[Eleanors38]

22. Not in the slightest. If the states had accessible records, and an entity could...

acquire the cases where someone was adjudicated mentally incompetent (sans name, address & other i.d. factors) and could not acquire a firearm legally, then a research organization with a good objective might be able to compile data from the states. From this, trends and factors in the adjudication might be identified.

This would not be a study to determine compliance with NICS (rather sorry in most cases), but to see what factors are flagged most often. Of course, there is the danger that such a study could be abused; meaning a formulaic set of factors could be standardized whereby an individual would be automatically denied 2A by merely showing up with these characteristics.

A public health benefit could be had: Clearly, most persons who have these characteristic(s) will not be adjudicated mentally incompetent, but therapists could zero in on treatments which would help these people from legally over the edge.

[Aaronquah]

23. This law shall be extended to the whole country

To try to make USA as safer as possible.

If you would like to make a monumental change, please sign a petition in order for a universal background checks and to ban people with troubled background from buying firearms.

http://signon.org/sign/obama-ban-gun-sales-to?source=c.fwd.in&r_by=7146035