Could a Aussie tell us how your Government confiscated your guns?

[/pine]

banning or restricting guns will NOT solve the problem

focusing on guns is a knee jerk reaction...!

SEALE, Ala. (AP) An eastern Alabama high school student faces an attempted assault charge after authorities say he planned to use homemade explosives in a terrorist attack on fellow students at his school.

Derek Shrout, a 17-year-old student at Russell County High School in Seale, was scheduled to appear at a Monday afternoon court hearing.

Shrout was apprehended after a journal was found by a teacher and turned over to authorities, Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor said.

"The journal contained several plans that looked like potential terrorist attacks, and attacks of violence and danger on the school," Taylor told WTVM-TV. "And in particular, there were six students specifically named, and one teacher."

A search of Shrout's home found several small tobacco cans and two large cans, all with holes drilled in them and containing pellets, Taylor told the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer.

The devices were just "a step or two away from being ready to explode," the sheriff said.

Taylor praised the efforts of school officials and others.

"The system worked and thank God, it did," he said. "We avoided a very bad situation."

 

[Gunny]

If we want to prevent these mass murders, we need to attack the root cause of all of them: people with serious psychiatric and personality disorders.

We do not need to do much on the identification side either, as every one of these mass murders had been identified as having some form of mental health issue associated with violence long before their murder event. What prevented their forcible detainment was:

(1) mental health professionals restricted or prohibited in their ability to bring these dangerous schizophrenics and psychopaths to the attention of the legal system,

(2)the neutering of the legal system's ability to confine these unfortunates until treatment is shown to have permanent lasting effect,

(3) because we no longer have the ability to treat them because we dismantled the public psychiatric hospital system.

Instead we "treat them" by giving them a tiny supply of psychotropic drugs and returning them to our midst, where, after selling, loosing, or simply running out of these medications, their mental illness continues a downward spiral of alienation, sociopathy, and hostility that ends with them committing heinous crimes

 

[sweettractors]

If we want to prevent these mass murders, we need to attack the root cause of all of them: people with serious psychiatric and personality disorders.

We do not need to do much on the identification side either, as every one of these mass murders had been identified as having some form of mental health issue associated with violence long before their murder event. What prevented their forcible detainment was:

(1) mental health professionals restricted or prohibited in their ability to bring these dangerous schizophrenics and psychopaths to the attention of the legal system,

(2)the neutering of the legal system's ability to confine these unfortunates until treatment is shown to have permanent lasting effect,

(3) because we no longer have the ability to treat them because we dismantled the public psychiatric hospital system.

Instead we "treat them" by giving them a tiny supply of psychotropic drugs and returning them to our midst, where, after selling, loosing, or simply running out of these medications, their mental illness continues a downward spiral of alienation, sociopathy, and hostility that ends with them committing heinous crimes

I don't think it is out of the question to hold the Doctors/Caregivers responsible when these terrible gun "acts of violence" occurs. It is clearly "Medical Malpractice" in any sense of the word. If they are diagnosed and put on meds, there should be a way to confirm that they STAY on the meds until the psychiatric problem is resolved. If it can NEVER be resolved, the patient needs to be prohibited from being a potential threat to society. Ken Sweet

 

[IslandTractor]

The vast majority of National Guard armories are not manned 24/7/365, in fact none of the ones I'm familiar with are, usually more around 10/5/238, and I'm familiar with over 50 of them. Weapons are locked into racks, racks are chained together, all behind a vault door, they all have intrusion alarms though.

We're not going to stop crime and we're not going to stop gun violence, but it's idiotic to think that we can pass new legislation that will only affect law abiding citizens and make any kind of difference.
Such laws would not have made much of a difference in the Connecticut shooting for a couple of reasons. 1. - The "assault rifle" wasn't used, he had it, but he didn't use it. 2 - The guns were obtained illegally in that he killed someone in order to to get them. 3 - Connecticut already had a strict ban in place, yet the guns were there.

About the only common denominator in these shootings were the mental health issues of the shooters so why not strengthen/implement/enforce laws regarding mental health issue reporting systems? In this computer driven age, I doubt it would be hard at all to do, it's just that it isn't and can't be done because of liberal laws prohibiting it. (HIPAA.). Just link the mental health records into the NICS database.
Would that solve all the incidents, no, because a true criminal or someone with enough mental issues that they don't worry about laws will still get done what they want to get done.
Would even destroying all 20 or 30 round magazines prevent it, even if ALL of them were destroyed? No, 10 round or even 5 round magazines would still be used in those instances. A criminal (or mentally challenged) will always use what's available, the legality of the tool has no bearing or issue with them.

The comment that we allow our freedom of speech to be limited on this forum is true because of the usage agreement when signing up, but we agree to that limitation, but only on this forum, we agree to it on other forums we belong to, but that agreement to restriction ends when we log off, it's not applied to all of us all the time by the government, it only applies to one small area, while in use and we're free at any time to opt out. Not so when government gets involved.

Dianne Feinstein has a concealed weapons permit, the reporter that did the article giving all the address of permit holders also has a concealed weapons permit, but because they are them, guns are good and because we are us (as in not them) guns are bad. Too many of these politicians, actors, reporters, etc have the "OK for me, but not for Thee" attitude.

1) Although initial reports were confused, I'm pretty sure the police and ME concluded that the Bushmaster was the only weapon actually used. So assault rifle once again was the unfortunately very logical weapon of choice.

2) HIPAA is indeed an impediment but I disagree with your characterization of that as a liberal law. It has a traditionally conservative aim of protecting privacy. It interferes with lots of "liberal" goals like monitoring medication use and side effects in big databases. I honestly don't know which party proposed it though.

3) Better screening and reporting of mental health issues is a key issue with most of these mass killings. Making the purchase process more thorough would take time and resources but a 30 day or more waiting period while such checks are done seems a small sacrifice. There may be other ways but I rather like the ?Aussie approach of requiring a few community members to provide references too.

4) We don't yet know about Nancy Lanza's storage system but it seems reasonable to mandate tighter requirements including evidence of gun safe ownership and installation prior to approval.

 

[k0ua]

Island, what do you think about my post, and the banning of any firearm that becomes the "logical weapon of choice" by the murdering attention seeking lunatic?

James K0UA

 

[tcartwri]

I don't know where you came up with the 30% figure....

Source; www.nimh.nih.gov

Mental Disorders in America

Mental disorders are common in the United States and internationally. An estimated 26.2 percent of Americans ages 18 and older about one in four adults suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year.1 When applied to the 2004 U.S. Census residential population estimate for ages 18 and older, this figure translates to 57.7 million people.2 Even though mental disorders are widespread in the population, the main burden of illness is concentrated in a much smaller proportion about 6 percent, or 1 in 17 who suffer from a serious mental illness.1 In addition, mental disorders are the leading cause of disability in the U.S. and Canada.3 Many people suffer from more than one mental disorder at a given time. Nearly half (45 percent) of those with any mental disorder meet criteria for 2 or more disorders, with severity strongly related to comorbidity.

Other reasons you may be declined a permit here include;
Bankruptcy,
Recent Divorce or family breakdown,
Addictions,
Disease,
etc..

The numbers are big.

 

[k0ua]

Source; www.nimh.nih.gov

Mental Disorders in America

Mental disorders are common in the United States and internationally. An estimated 26.2 percent of Americans ages 18 and older about one in four adults suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year.1 When applied to the 2004 U.S. Census residential population estimate for ages 18 and older, this figure translates to 57.7 million people.2 Even though mental disorders are widespread in the population, the main burden of illness is concentrated in a much smaller proportion about 6 percent, or 1 in 17 who suffer from a serious mental illness.1 In addition, mental disorders are the leading cause of disability in the U.S. and Canada.3 Many people suffer from more than one mental disorder at a given time. Nearly half (45 percent) of those with any mental disorder meet criteria for 2 or more disorders, with severity strongly related to comorbidity.

Other reasons you may be declined a permit here include;
Bankruptcy,
Recent Divorce or family breakdown,
Addictions,
Disease,
etc..

The numbers are big.

Well, that explains a lot.

 

[Gunny]

Island Tractor:
3) Better screening and reporting of mental health issues is a key issue with most of these mass killings. Making the purchase process more thorough would take time and resources but a 30 day or more waiting period while such checks are done seems a small sacrifice. There may be other ways but I rather like the ?Aussie approach of requiring a few community members to provide references too.

Why 30 days in these days of computers? Would you want to wait 30 days for your drivers license to be renewed, after all, as you said, it's a small sacrifice, but sacrifices become so much larger when you are the one asked for the sacrifice. And as for the Aussie way (cause we all know theirs has to be better), do they do such checks on the community members who are providing references, especially any that might give a negative report, or from your side of the fence, only check on those who give positive reports? Who is defining what number constitutes a few?

Island Tractor:
4) We don't yet know about Nancy Lanza's storage system but it seems reasonable to mandate tighter requirements including evidence of gun safe ownership and installation prior to approval.

You say it seems reasonable, but that's just your opinion. How about mandated requirements and proof to keep your automobile secured when you're not using it? What about knives? I know you'll say that's going to the extremes, but if you give up a little to the government, then they'll keep coming back and taking a little more, and that's in their history: We gave them some concessions in 1934; but they wanted more in 1968, And even more in 1986, and yet more in 1993 and 1994.

 

[Gunny]

Source; www.nimh.nih.gov

Mental Disorders in America

Mental disorders are common in the United States and internationally. An estimated 26.2 percent of Americans ages 18 and older about one in four adults suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year.1 When applied to the 2004 U.S. Census residential population estimate for ages 18 and older, this figure translates to 57.7 million people.2 Even though mental disorders are widespread in the population, the main burden of illness is concentrated in a much smaller proportion about 6 percent, or 1 in 17 who suffer from a serious mental illness.1 In addition, mental disorders are the leading cause of disability in the U.S. and Canada.3 Many people suffer from more than one mental disorder at a given time. Nearly half (45 percent) of those with any mental disorder meet criteria for 2 or more disorders, with severity strongly related to comorbidity.

Other reasons you may be declined a permit here include;
Bankruptcy,
Recent Divorce or family breakdown,
Addictions,
Disease,
etc..

The numbers are big.

So you're taking the smaller 6% that suffer a serious mental illness that would prevent them from purchasing a firearm and transposing it up to the 26.2% that "may" have a diagnosable problem (but haven't been evaluated for such), then rounding it up to 30%, then add as additional reasons, which I'm sure are included in the 26.2%. Yeah, using that Canadian math, it do make them numbers bigger, don't it?
Yes, stressful events cause some mental anguish, but that doesn't automatically put one into a category where they can be certified by a certified mental health professional as being dangerous to themselves or others. (That's the criteria for being professionally evaluated, just so you know)

 

[tcartwri]

Well, that explains a lot.

It's also why we have to renew our permits every five years. Situations change. You will find that most of these mass shooters are in their early 20's, exactly when some of the more serious mental disorders develop.