Will the Gun-Grabbers Create a ‘No Buy List’ Using Your Prescription Records?
In 2011 the White House issued a report called “Epidemic: Responding to America’s Prescription to America’s Prescription Drug Abuse Crisis“ which outlined the goals of the Obama administration in battling this problem:
PDMPs [Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs] can and should serve a multitude of functions, including: assisting in patient care, providing early warning of drug abuse epidemics (especially when combined with other data), evaluating interventions, and investigating drug diversion and insurance fraud. [emphasis added]
They set a goal to:
Expand upon DOJ’s pilot efforts to build PDMP interoperability across state lines, including leveraging state electronic health information exchange activities. Work to expand interstate data sharing among PDMPs through the Prescription Drug Information Exchange (PMIX).
In response, the Behavioral Health Coordinating Committee of the Department of Health and Human Services issued its own report, called “An Action Plan for Improving Access to Prescription Drug Monitoring Program Through Health Information.“
The ambition is to provide clinicians and pharmacists with real-time information about patient’s prescription drug histories from the PDMPs, which can reduce the risk of opioid-related drug abuse and deaths. The Action Plan encourages collaboration across federal, state and local governments, State HIT [Health Information Technology] Coordinators, State PDMP Administrators, providers, pharmacists, health care professionals’ associations, and vendors to pilot ways to improve access to PDMP data through the use of HIT.
Of course, this meshes nicely with the Affordable Care Act’s goals of standardizing electronic medical records.
What does any of this have to do with the gun-grabbing Feds? On Tuesday the New York State Assembly passed a controversial law restricting gun ownership, part of which included a mental illness section. The law “…will require mental health professionals, in the exercise of reasonable professional judgment, to report if an individual they are treating is likely to engage in conduct that will cause serious harm to him- or herself or others.”
While the N.Y. bill gives a great deal of latitude to mental health professionals, at least it limits the provision to “mental health professionals.”
As someone who has no desire to have a gun in my home, I am still deeply concerned about this legislation out of fear that my medical records could be made public knowledge. What other ways could this information be used? To deny employment, to encourage sterilization, to put a mark on my children as potentially less than perfect because of their genetics. I have to suffer being publicly exposed and humiliated and I don’t even want a damn gun. The reason I am marked is I once called a suicide hotline when I was in a really bad situation. Let me tell you, don’t believe these ads that say call someone we are here to help if you need someone to talk to. All they did was send the cops who wrestled me to the ground, treated me like a criminal, and involuntarily committed me. For that I am marked for life. It’s a trap, don’t call those people, they are not there to talk.
Now that they are taking this further I wouldn’t dare go talk to a doctor if I was feeling depressed or anxious for fear of further stigmatization. I will also make sure my children are never medicated out of fear that they may be marked and suffer career discrimination someday. It also makes you think about the potential abuse that can come from school records. You don’t get a trial. A teacher could mark your five year old daughter as a terrorist when she talks about shooting her pink bubble gun (see link to article on today’s instapundit). This mark could stigmatize her for life. What were those Soviet hospital’s for the “insane” called. We are on a slippery slope. Perhaps homeschooling is the best option.
I already had that problem,
because I was one of millions of Americans who had to get a government security clearance.
And Defense Investigative Services certainly did care about the applicant’s mental state. An applicant might have to take a psychiatric interview and a lie detector test.
Your story is a perfect of example of how these laws go so wrong. If mental health records are used by anyone other than one’s doctor, it will just discourage people from getting care in the first place. This has been amply demonstrated with other conditions, such as prosecuting pregnant women who test positive for drugs. Then they just stop coming to the obstetrician- which makes their situation even worse.
What if they start going house to house on a gun grab. What happens if they don’t believe you when you tell them you have no guns. You have two choices, let them ransack your house (they kill dogs too) or risk being killed yourself.
3 choices … the 2 you mentioned and “The Blaze of Glory” – preferably with a call to a local news agency before hand.
That’s one of the things I find most concerning about all of this. With the BATF’s history of shooting first and never bothering to ask questions later, combined with the government’s history of terrible record keeping, I can easily see them doing guns out no-knock raids of people who have complied with the laws, and killing a bunch of people in the process.
The way they operate, I almost think they want gunfights.
We have empowered the government to steal our money through the use of force already. Why not our vehicles, homes, and guns? The precedents are already locked into our legal system. Now, all they have to do is just go door to door and there is no legal way to stop them? Guns is all we have left. That is why they are hell bent on restricting ownership of guns by law abiding citizens and make no mistake about that. We got our Second Amendment right to have and to bear arms for exactly this reason. Welcome to the USSA, folks. Elections have real consequences and re-electing a Communist did not help matters one damned bit. How is all that trickle up poverty working out for everyone, so far?
Sandy Hook provided the needed emotional power that Fast & Furious failed to. Holder, Feinstein and his royal highness couldn’t have been happier since all that “under the radar” stuff backfired and resulted in having to trowel over their operation in order to hide their motives.
Aside from proving how obvious socialists are, I have recently had a conversation with fellow workers who are “perplexed” and “can’t possibly understand” why “anyone would need a 30 round magazine” citing that they have no use in hunting.
So, here we have the mal-informed citizens who fail to realize that being free means understanding how to maintain it. By holding the government accountable and being able to counter their desire for absolute control is paramount.
I’ve never had a problem with anyone having a bazooka, or even a tank for that matter. A well-armed civilian populace is what any/all governments fear, and rightfully so. I recently re-read how the Nazis took the guns away from citizens and anyone possessing a “military” rifle was declared an enemy of the state.
And, in EVERY SINGLE CASE of government enforced gun-control, whipping the law-abiding into control was much easier, as was putting people into prison who didn’t fit the utopian vision of the “leaders”.
I wonder if people will write in 2200 or so what would’ve happened if the people of the United States took up arms against Obama, Reid, Pelosi, et al. You know, the way people do about Hitler and Goering and Himmler and their ilk. That is, “Couldn’t they SEE what was going on?”
Indeed we can. But since such talk of violence is so tightly controlled, that is, if were to say certain things here, the FBI would come visit me. They could shut the site down, etc. This is the beginning of a Nazi state. We are in it. And I don’t LIKE it.
The rabble I work with, generally pretty smart people even think that government-led gun control is the only way to stop mass killings.
I wonder how they’ll feel when it’s the government doing the killing.
1933 when Germany went upside-down. 1929 while the US was worried about its financial depression, Stalin was taking the guns from Russian citizens and by 1987, 61+ million had been eliminated through government-sponsored murder.
And…my co-workers insist that “Pshaw…they don’t want to take your hunting rifle away….just the assault weapons….Nobody needs those.”
I submit that we need them now more than ever.
Yes, remember Waco. Just a far out religious cult (supposedly abusing their own children)so the death that resulted from the federal raid was justified according to the Democrats (Clinton was potus and Janet Reno agtus then)and the lap dog media. So what you say is not far fetched at all.
“As someone who has no desire to have a gun in my home, I am still deeply concerned about this legislation out of fear that my medical records could be made public knowledge.”
You’re correct to notice that the electronic availability of this kind of information is dangerous. There will, of course, be the standard boilerplate language assuring us that it will be secure.
But, in the case of checking for mental stability for gun purchases, they’re going to go to the mat now and insist on understanding the mental status of the buyer. It’s been demanded loud and clear, and, even though you and I know that they know, that the availability of this data is a treasure trove for busy-body tyrants, it’s coming.
I can assure that it is a joke. I just had to do HIPAA training to make sure that I am “safe” to handle information. It basically consisted of being told that because I was trained I was “safe” to handle such information.
There is built-in irony here. The socialists, in the 60′s and 70′s demanded that asylums be closed, citing the rights of the mentally deficient. By releasing them onto the public, the number of violent crimes soared throughout those decades and after, one the fix was in.
In other words, violent crimes due to mental incapacitance was far more desirable than maintaining asylums where they would be watched and kept under control. All in the name of “fairness” (sound familiar?)
Now, the freak-show nutjob who killed in Newtown had known mental health issues and those self-same dipshit socialists who would clamor for his “rights” are now demanding that the law-abiding undergo mental health evaluations to see if they can own a gun. Yet our feckless republican “leadership”, again sporting their “party of stupid” banner, fail to address this.
I don’t own any guns right now. But I will be buying military-grade equipment in the future and, if necessary, on the black market. Won’t be registering them, won’t be taking any tests to see if I can have them. I am an American and my right to keep and bear arms WILL NOT BE INFRINGED.
New laws and bullshit “intellectual” thought does not trump The Constitution.
Oh, forgot to add and I have yet to see anyone point this out on any site. The Newtown shooter used HANDGUNS to kill. The AR-15 he shot his mother to get was left in his car. The “authorities” found four handguns were used in the school.
So, all the impending rules and regs have NOTHING to do with it. But that’s academic at this point as the American National Socialists are moving as fast as they can before the emotions wear off.
And the Columbine episode took place during the last assault weapons ban.
Perhaps it wasn’t irony at all and a calculated move. Didn’t Castro release the criminals to flood Fla.?
I worked in healthcare a few years back and couldn’t get out fast enough after what I saw. Lots of good points raised here by Anonymous, but there are a few things I should add.
First of all, have you ever actually read HIPAA? It’s about a little more than privacy, and my feeling is that it’s not really there to protect the patient anyway. But I also saw lots of violations of it during my stint, typically for mental health patients. It wasn’t uncommon for the crowd that I worked for, the more trained medical people, not just administrative staff, to make nasty jokes about how crazy they were, and they got annoyed when I didn’t joke along.
Then there was the special questionnaire they wanted to hand out in the waiting room that no one was supposed to know was meant for mental health screening. It came off sounding innocent enough, but I discovered from the social worker that they intended on involuntary commitment using it, and they wanted me to ride with patients in a taxi to their facility of choice! I didn’t stay long enough for that to happen, but I did read over the secret screening tool to note how someone who earnestly believed it was just a question asked out of kindness might reveal something rather trivial that would set the wheels against “depression” moving.
I also have a few friends who worked in the mental health field. One had a nervous breakdown and had to quit because of the conflicts she felt over ethics and conflicts with her personal beliefs (some of it was about the push for pedophilia, too, in the psychology field). The other had such a bad time during her first job after school in a super dysfunctional facility that she found some more unobtrusive side to the field and took up studying Reiki.
But this move raises lots of serious questions. The field desperately needs to be looked at and reformed with a critical eye before granting it unlimited political power.
The moment they mandated records be electronic, your whole life was databased up. It’s a sad fact of this age, but there it is.
The Ottoman Empire banned Armenians from owning firearms in areas under Ottoman control during WW1. The people that turned in their firearms to government officials were immediately executed as potential enemies of the state. Armenians that insisted they had never owned firearms were executed for hiding weapons. The Armenians that took to the mountains with their firearms and resisted were eventually rescued by the French and British.
That is why even people who don’t own guns should care about this kind of government overreach. Just because you don’t own a gun, doesn’t mean the authorities won’t come knocking on your door insisting on confiscating your guns. What happens when you have nothing to give them but they don’t believe you?
You’ve just grasped the real reason for the Second Amendment – to protect ourselves from government tyranny. If enough people have guns and are willing to use them to resist the new gestapo, then the new gestapo will be no more.
Even if you have no interest in buying a gun and some ammo, do it anyway, and take a class in how to shoot. Consider it your duty.
In case anyone hasn’t seen these yet:
Mike Huckabee interviews firearms expert Larry Correia
Larry Correia refutes the gun controllers, once and for all
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ
And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.
― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
They steal your jewelry or whatever of value that they find.
It’s worth checking the list – I’ve taken several medications on it, and some are maintenance prescriptions because I’m narcoleptic. There are also some eye-opening items on that list, especially if you have more than a smattering of chemical knowledge.
This is actually old news. Prescription drug use or seeing a shrink has long been grounds for denying gun ownership in many places. Even in places where you don’t have to get permission from local “authorities” to be allowed to own a gun, which includes far more places than just New York City, DC and the like, then Conceal Carry Permits can be denied.
The New version of the DSM is a very dangerous work. The definitions in it are so broad and full of made up “illnesses” including I kid not being a jerk at work, road rage, or even just angry or sad during the day. In other words, it would be harder NOT to be declared mentally ill these days than not. The least little display of emotion could be enough to get you diagnosed and pumped full of drugs. Seems like that will have dire consequences in the near future, not only losing guns but don’t think that Obamacare won’t prescribe the poison pill for people with “conditions” and the wrong political affiliations.
No, it depends on the particular drugs.
Someone who is prescribed Valium or Xanax for anxiety, isn’t going to raise any red flags. Those drugs are milder than booze.
But someone who is prescribed lithium or Seroquel (quetiapine), is certainly going to raise some red flags.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quetiapine
Someone who has been diagnosed as bipolar or as schizophrenic (for which those two drugs are often prescribed) cannot be entrusted with a gun, any more than a young child can be entrusted with a gun.
I have been prescribed both seroquel and lithium at various times over the years for migraines.
Seroquel is a controlled medication because it has street value.
Sinz54, Do me a favor and grab your Diagnostic and Statistical Manual and find “mass murder” as a symptom of any mental illness. Take your time.
Some of my relative are certifiably nuts-they voted for Obama. What happens if you must give a sample of your DNA to be checked for : “possible genetic mental aberrations potential”, before being permitted to exercise your Constitutional rights?
“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help’,” said Ronald Reagan… and he was right.
So the biggest gun abuser of them all, Blondy Hands Barack “Fast and Furious” Obama, will be ordering medical doctors to become his gestapo and help him populate his enemies data base.
Several authors at PJM advocate permanent involuntary institutionalization of “the mentally ill”, generally. That is, those taking these medications. Surely, prohibiting gun ownership is small potatoes compared to denying ALL rights and humanity. So, what’s the big deal?
Since I haven’t been a regular reader here for some time, I had no idea they had fascists suggesting such a move with their articles. All, please find yourself copies of the following books and educate yourself as to why what they recommend should not be allowed:
Dr. Peter Breggin, Toxic Psychiatry (includes a look at forced medication of the masses in drinking water and schyster “studies” supporting certain definitions of mental illness)
Dr. Colin Ross, CIA Doctors (discusses the ugly underbelly of university research hospitals, including doctors using psych techniques to recruit for prostitution rings, etc.)
Robyn Dawes, House of Cards: Psychology and Psychotherapy Built on Myth (includes a discussion by the author and former head of the APA on how his colleagues wanted to use a diagnostic test to show who would become a pedophile that wasn’t tested to show it could predict anything at all!)
I’m sure there’s plenty more, but those are the best ones I can recommend beyond a thorough study of Soviet and Nazi uses of mental hospitals for political purposes. In the case of the latter, check out Dr. Ernst Rudin’s illustrous career. And how about Robert Proctor’s interesting book, Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis.
Happy reading.
Dr. Harvey Weinstein, Psychiatry and the CIA: Victims of Mind Control (about his own father’s destruction at the hands of nutjob psychiatrist Dr. Ewen Cameron)
We have the IRS database mating up with the HHS database for 0bamaCareRobertsTax. The eventual goal has to be means testing for government provided healthcare. Now we have the gun database which will mating up with IRS & HHS databases in the future. Filter all of this data through 0bama campaign donors list database. Ok, if you’re still with me, remember the software exists or with the unlimited government resources, can be developed. Government, as of now 0bama, can screen for the ultimate enemies list. The government can search their database for any combination of markers or profiles. My employers insurance came in and collected DNA samples, ostensibly to identify early disease warning, so over time blend in DNA database. The government will have assembled the mother lode of data to mine in whatever manner serves their purpose.
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
And if you have ever spoken to a psychiatrist or psychologist, you would honestly not want these professionals to have any say over your civil rights. Generally they are flaming liberals with power issuses and for some reason are stuck in groupthink.
Perfect kapos.
The therapy side of the science ‘can be’ very subjective in practice. However, the science side which is a matter heavily weighted on statistical data is not even remotely close to subjective. As neuro-bio and DNA advances continue, such statisitcal data seems to be given even more weight. take a look at the advanced studies of temper and violence research for example. Some of persons personality/behavior is environmentally influenced and a whole lot of it is ‘wired’ so to speak.
actually, I think you’d be better off carefully finding a psychologist – who cannot prescribe in most states. while I agree that his field is filled with lefties, there are many who are not, and there is a great deal of benefit that can be found. I disagree that psychiatry is more “science-based” just because they prescribe. The ones I know about are not very discriminatory about prescribing and know remarkably little about their patients.
(as a nearly-LPC, I am a little biased – I recognize that. but that doesn’t make me wrong.)
The line between normal and pathological is entirely subjective. Check the DSM. Coffee drinking can be subjectively diagnosed as chemical abuse or dependence, an Axis I mental illness diagnosis for life. Believing in Bible prophecies can be pathologized as “religiosity.” It goes on and on. It all depends on who is doing the mental health check. The idea that we ought depend on mental health workers for our rights is absurd. There is nothing crazier than the mental health system, itself. Except for us agreeing with our government to give them this much power over our lives and believing we will all be exceptions. That is even crazier.
All Obysmal has to do is declare that the desire to own a gun is evidence of mental illness.
Hence all gun owners are therefore ” mental defectives” and should not be allowed to own a gun.
It’s called Obama logic.
We’ve got at least four more years of this assault on the constitution to go.
Would that be “Catch-23″?
Exactly!
Republican’s, Christians, Catholics, veterans, the mentally ill, conservatives, white males will all be made unable to own guns.
As was said, Diane’s law will not affect the government Officials rights to own any and all types of firearms.
So The People who run our government will have guns as will the criminals and the police, ANG the armed forces BUT the one segment of the population that will not be allowed arms will be the law abiding citizens.
In their minds the government considers anyone who likes or wants to own a gun is mentally ill.
If you believe in the second amendment then you are mentally ill and cannot own a gun.
Many Catholics are big Lefties – Biden, Pelosi, Kerry, Kennedy Family, Sebelius, etc. The Catholic Church has gone left in all positions but abortion, look for clergy to side with the gun control crowd and many of their flock voted for Obama, wasn’t it 54%? I don’t recall but they clearly don’t care about the 1st Amendment so why would they care about the 2nd?
The complaint “assault rifles give ordinary citizens more firepower than the police” is silly when the police can buy Class III destructive devices and weapons and I can’t. If they feel outgunned, they can mount an Orlikon full-auto cannon on the back of a truck. They can buy M-16s, Tommy guns, MP-5s or whatever else they feel they need. The mayor and city council may not approve, but that’s not my problem.
Keeping the mentally ill from owning firearms seems like a good idea at first blush. The problem is that the very politicized American Psychiatric Associations’s DSM keeps finding mental diseases that no one in the past considered to be such. What happens when they decide, for example, that anybody who would possess guns in a household with children exhibits, by that very fact, a disease that renders them incapable of properly caring for others? And what about those who have recently lost a close family member or have gone through a divorce? This can cause depression and depressed people sometimes flip out and hurt others.
Remember too that doctors are now required to ask patients a number of questions including whether they have firearms in the house, as well as other personal questions that really have nothing to do with one’s physical health. There is no requirement that the patients must answer the questions nor that they must be truthful–yet.
And what is a mental health professional? Anyone the government says is a mental health professional. I suppose they could offer a two day Mickey Mouse course to government officials after which they would be granted their “mental health paramedic” licenses.
Blend all this together with a database and you have a truly toxic brew.
The other day, I was asked very indiscretely and loudly what race I was by a receptionist at the doctors office. I told her it was none of her business, then I told my son loudly and clearly that if anyone ever asks him his race he has mommy’s permission to tell them that it is none of their business.
Answer: Human
Any psychiatrist knows that all mental illnesses are not equal.
Someone who is neurotic–anxious, obsessed, depressed–or who just has an odd personality, has not lost touch with reality. He knows there’s something wrong with him, and he knows that others aren’t acting and feeling as he is.
But someone who is psychotic–schizophrenic, paranoid–or bipolar, can lose contact with reality.
It’s the psychotics, not the neurotics, who should be kept away from guns.
Why do you assume psychiatrists will be making these decisions. These will be Sebelius decisions. Law enforcement decisions based on their interpretation of your records. They will be translating, not doctors or psychiatrists. This will be the deeming of the bureaucrats, not the physicians. Doctors treat people who are mentally ill. Bureaucrats make law enforcement decisions. Psychiatrists aren’t in the business of making law enforcement decisions and the government is unlikely to pay them their 150-200 per hour fee to do so.
Nothing Obama does translates into workable reality. And what he says and what he does are usually two different things.
Psychosis is usually a temporary state, by the way. None of the illnesses you list are equivalent to psychosis. There are working police officers who are diagnosed bi-polar. There is medication for schizophrenia. To deem anyone who has these mental illnesses as capable of mass murder is ridiculous.
I am afraid you are very comfortable with this as long as you think it will only affect “those people.” Psychosis, under certain circumstances, can be the temporary state of a normal person in an abnormal situation or even some physical illnesses. Psychosis doesn’t translate to violence and murder. Usually someone in psychosis is in a fetal position.
I am afraid you guys are easily fooled. This is not really just about guns. This is about complete control.
When did illness become a sign of evil? What have we become? When did doctors become cops? This cannot stand.
I know I’m a little emotional. But this is bad. Scapegoating of unfortunates, demonizing people who are disabled. This is wrong, wrong, wrong. And it will not guarantee that the right to bear arms will stand. First they came for the “feeble-minded.” Those who do not learn from the past…
Me,
You raise some really good points to ponder. But one thing you must know is that psychiatrists most certainly make the decisions and are paid by the cops all the time. Did you see the ruling Elena Kagan signed off on allowing immunity for prosecutors to fabricate evidence against someone just as long as they aren’t convicted for “the good of society”? Now, besides the crazy idea that it would ever be okay for a prosecutor to fabricate evidence, what logical purpose would such an immunity serve?
As a matter of fact, it would quite easily allow for involuntary commitments that coerce into plea bargains and therefore never go to trial. When these situations arise, instead of the usual burden of proof on the prosecutor, the DA can make up whatever they like, send you to a mental hospital, then the burden of proof shifts to you. You could be deemed mentally ill just because your story doesn’t match their complaint details, for example. But the cops defer to them, you are talking to the cops/prosecutor when you talk to any doctor in the facility, and everything is your word against theirs. No witnesses need be called.
It’s the psychotics, not the neurotics, who should be kept away from power. That’s most of our political and ruling class.
This is an honest topic to be debated. However it is a subset of a larger issue, one which has to potential to turn our nation into a dictatorship; it is modern intelligence gathering and processing. It is extremely difficult for veteran engineers to truly comprehend the warp drive rapid increases in electronic advances. But we are at the dawn of another day of electronic advances. Coupled with the bottom of the barrel technical knowledge of our voters, and the people they put into high places, it is a source of despair for loyal geeks.
Once a transistor cost over $100,000 apiece. Today ten thousand transistors cost less than a penny. They literally can replace sand in road concrete, and detect any thing for which they are programmed. The military flies over the oceans, drops tons of postage stamp size objects, which float down to the bottom of the sea. On their journey, should they detect a passing sub, they “peep” intell back to the Pentagon. (I simplify, but not much.) Your car can now tell on you in a court of law, by revealing basic performance parameters, e.g. speed, or braking, to the opposing attorney.
Roe v Wade is based on the right of individual privacy, which is nowhere found in our Constitution. However, based on RvW, do you have the right to privacy for owning a weapon? Does the government have the right to your mental health, medical, weapons possession, and address. If Hitler had the power common to today’s credit card companies, there would have been no Anne Frank. By Pearl Harbor, no Jew would have survived in all of Europe.
Accurate and timely intelligence is the highest priority to all dictatorships. And doctors.
The conceptual system has merit. Insane people should not have access to weapons, while they are out of control. But the abuses noted above, the corruption of the USSR mental health system, the felonious behavior of our DoJ during Fast and Furious, and warrant less wire taps gives grave warning. It is now quite possible to trump our Constitution with an Executive order. Hence, the ability to face your accuser, have him/her identified, have them provide written bases for invading your privacy, and having a judicial hearing on permanently scrubbing your file, is crucial. Thirty day volatile data bases, which vanish, are a lesser concern, for gun purchase and a host of other reasons.
A national debate on privacy vs our extant intel system is a worthy topic to preserve our freedom. It cuts both ways, and can kill.
Those are some sobering thoughts, R.L. All issues that deserve serious debate rather than the knee-jerk reactions some are calling for.
Oh no, not the old red herring that “there is no right of privacy to be found in the Constitution”.
It’s there—just not explicitly stated as such. Remember the Fourth Amendment, for starters, about papers, etc. Also, note that the Constitution was intended as a guardian of concepts of English common law as applied in the new United States, which explicitly states certain principles about a broad right to privacy.
This right has been misused in court cases, most notably Roe v. Wade, but it’s there.
This legal theory is a thin reed, or non existent. (See the writings of Judges Bork and Scalia.)
An example of the problem scope: It is technically possible, today, to electronically read someone’s mind, with or without their permission. The technology is a few years old, primitive, but already has been judged as important to several professions as the telescope was to astronomy, or anesthesia was to medicine. It will revolutionize relationships in the confessional, bedroom, interrogation room, witness stand, and psychiatrist’s couch. It is fMRI.
Question: Does GE need a bench warrant to read your mind, know your thoughts precisely? Does the government have the right to know where you keep your guns? (applicable to this article.) We have not resolved wire tap rights, but a electronic tsunami is heading toward us.
Daily Caller has a couple of very good articles on EMRs. 1 major point is the use of pre-written templates for the doctors to click on when recording information about you visit. The short version is that the EMR entry bears very little resemblance to the actual visit…. I’m on my Tablet this morning, but the article should be easy to locate.
We’re a medicated nation.
All this does it make it so incredibly easy to prohibit you from firearms.
I seem to recall other empires using this excuse to imprison dissidents.
Seeing as how they’re pushing gun owner = angry person in the media right now, perhaps we should all ask ourselves just how much longer we’re going to listen this crap.
This was the first thing that came to mind when I saw Sebelius sitting beside Biden, but I don’t think you’ve gotten the complete picture. Go read the “potential side effects” of even common meds for routine medical issues… several meds for blood pressure can cause “personality changes”, depression, thoughts of suicide. How many meds advise not to use heavy machinery. I recall being prescribed one drug after a c-section that said not to allow the patient to make any major life decisions for 60 days. I was too chicken to fill that one. And how many times have you decided to not fill a script after reading up on the side effects.
Now add in the directive that your doctor is required to ask you about firearms in your home. Your Dr., because he accepts Medicaid, etc is by extension a Federal Agent. Its a felony to lie to any federal employee. The government knows stastics as well as we do. If a Dr. reports too few patients as owning firearms, he’ll be fined. And the feds will have the ability to cross reference any purchases made with a universal background check with your EMR, and if you lied to your Dr. – guess who just committed a felony, can no longer own firearms or vote?
So, the solution is go avoid the doctor and meds at all costs…. well, that has 2 problems 1. When you’re unconscious you don’t have choices in your treatment and 2. Obamacare pays for an annual physical, Sebelius can regulate that it be mandatory for you to have one….. the individual mandate has the potential to be much more than anyone imagines.
And I almost hesitate to bring up this additional point. How many of our current soldiers are being “set up” to have their rights stripped in the future? How many soldiers are being ordered to receive counseling for PTSD? While I do believe that PTSD is an issue for our troops, I also believe that the government has a compelling interest in convincing the American public that veterans are dangerous and ticking timebombs – it is in the governments interest to over diagnose and over treat those symptoms.
And Sebelius is right there with an executive order in hand to “make sure” that all the diagnoses possible are being included in the mentally ill category. Let’s think about who DHS identified as potential terrorists?
So, conceivably, the largest population who is most likely to safely own firearms, are getting blacklisted by their bosses.
Thank you. I think people are under-reacting to this. Law enforcement tied to medical records tied to doctors tied to the health care bill. Like the poet said, “Your private life will suddenly explode.”
Sorry folks, I’ve been kicking this around in my head since last weeks press conference, so I’ve had quite a few thoughts on the subject rolling around.
Do a quick count of the number of basic OTC medications that were reclassified and pulled behind the counters and require identification to purchase? What are the side effects? Drowsiness, irritability….
Somehow I feel like the right was a little too quick to write off Obama’s EOs as being ineffective – I think we’re being herded into a trap of our own making.
But don’t worry, Plan B (the so-called morning after pill) will be available with no restrictions (for ages 11 and up – no parental permission required) because we all know there are NO side effects for THAT one!
Our local hospital wanted a 2 million dollar loan to update and have patients records in front of them. The example they gave was an elderly person on 40 pills. Check for drug interactions, etc. When I read the article in the paper (I swear this is true) I thought ‘wow’. Someone on 40 pills needs to be dead because there is no way in he** there will not be interactions with taking 40 pills. The hospital got the loan. Record sharing is all the rage. Unfortunately, there have been some fatal results. So much for progress.
It is weird. Family, friends and pastors are now automatically denied access to hospital patients on grounds of “privacy”, but on the other hand all of our medical records are routinely available to our Big Sibs in DC and to any one else who happens to have the imprimatur of “security” clearance. I am not necessarily in favor of denying the government access to my medical records, but simply in the interests of fairness and equality it should be made mandatory that any person employed in any capacity by our government should post his/her medical records, including all prescription drugs, on the internet, so that we the people can see what their problems might be.
EMR will surve many purposes most will have nothing to do with improving the quality of care. Can anyone name one thing government does faster,cheaper or more efficiently than the private sector?
“Will the Gun-Grabbers Create a ‘No Buy List’ Using Your Prescription Records?”
Now theres a potentially good idea! How many people are walking the streets on the borderline of insanity and other serious anti social behaviors — but for a pill? Of the 4,497,096 felonies for robbery, aggrivated assault, violent crimes and burglary in 2011 for which approximately 60% involved guns PLUS 14,612 homicides, only 55% are committed by convicted felons which is consistant with the ten year averages. That means on average 45% of felonies crimes are committed by people could easily (or did), legally own guns.
Personally, I think those who have no problem with ‘anybody’ owning a gun until they prove ‘after the fact’ they shouldn’t have owned a gun is seriously, psychologically flawed themselves. Personally I think all gun owners and those attempting to purchase, should have too undergo every five years, a modified personality test with at least four validators. No obvious psychological defects — NO PROBLEM!
The fact that you apparently have faith that this kind of power would be used honestly and in service of the legitimate public interest tells me that you’re either insane yourself or at least deeply foolish. I’d also love to know who’s supposed to pay for five years of evaluation, and what makes you think that the sort of person who’d fail it won’t just build a bomb if they want to kill people.
Show me some actual data (not your BS, back of the envelope extrapolation) that people using these extremely common medications present some danger and I’ll listen. Of course, you’ll have to square that data with the fact that gun injuries and fatalities have decreased while gun ownership has increased in the last twenty years. You’ll also have to explain how crime has gone down while CCW laws have been liberalized all over. Or, being unable to square that circle you can just admit that your desire to deny other peoples’ rights has nothing to do with data and everything to do with being a liberty hating control freak.
Pretty hard thing to have an objective discussion with those who possess radicalized minds. They’re always asking for data to support this and that only to ignore it and or reject it. I have posted data from the DOJ/FBI, data from CDC, and data from independent depositories. Any you still ask for more. Well I’m not in the business to be sitting here copying and pasting to every person who comes along. ALL the date is available to you from any variety of provider sources!
Per capita gun ownership has aboslutely NOTHING to do with the historical swings in crime of any kinds, much less violent and homicides. If you can come up with any such data to suggest that it does, I would welcome it for review. Felony gun crimes are in two camps — premediated and crimes of opportunity. Few crimes with guns are indicated in the category of premeditated, too include homicides. Accordong to DOJ/FBI ten year data averages, 10-13,000 homicides per year, only high 2-300 some homicides are categorized as justifiable including those of LEOs. Of aggravated assualts and violent crimes for which about 60% involve guns, there is NO data recorded indicating how many of those crimes were invervened by another party carrying a gun and preventing such crimes from excalating. Again, if you have data showing that private gun ownership has diminished or contained serious felony crime(s) to include homicides in America, I would welcome it for review.
Factual data certainly doesn’t substantiate many of the radicals assertions and I suppose, that why I never see them posting any legitimate data (if any data at all), thats relevant to the disscusions of gun control.
I love the absolute lack of self-awareness required for you to lament how hard it is to have a conversation with someone who has a “radicalized mind”.
That said, you have the burden of proof exactly backwards. As the one seeking to infringe upon a fundamental right the burden is on you to justify denying that right to 10,000 innocent citizens in order to possibly weed out one maniac… one maniac who’ll just find another way to kill people anyway.
It’s not for me to show how private gun ownership diminishes crime (though if it was I could simply point you towards John Lott’s work), it’s for you to show me how private ownership increases crime. And by your own admission you can’t do that.
That is the most idiotic commenting I have seen you post to date! You only share in a self serving radicalized understanding of the Second Amendment and the constitution for that matter, in which expert constitutional authorities, even your own special interest lawyers and the Supreme court disagree with. Of the huge amounts of federal enacted gun regulations over many decades, how many times have you seen them brought to ligiation by your activist lawyers? How many of your activist lawyers over the decades have tried to litigate the common constitutional understanding of “States militias” v. some federal unorganized private citizen ‘malitias’, the latter, the radicals opinion?
As for the rest of your comments, the crime data with guns is what it is! For those old enough to remember, the majority of this nations history, gun crimes were rather insignificant in numbers with the overwhelming majority of homes with firearms. It wasn’t until the ’20s and the advent of organized mobs and mob crimes did guns become so widely popular for anything more than utilitatian uses by citizens. Since then, crime with guns has done nothing but increase decade after decade. Doesn’t take one with much intelligence to figure out why!
Our nations majority society has evloved beyond the mentality of citizen vigilantes and a delusional fear of a ‘legitimately defined’ tryannical government leader overthrowing the government and the constitution. The overwhelming majority of this nations citizens do not share in the radical and delusional fear that the Second Amendment is going to be repealed and the government is going to be going house-to-house to collect everybgodys guns.
Why? Because rational thinking people can see and understand for themselves that the constitution is well and working and the three departments of government are well and working with checks and balances as intended by the constituion.
Everything is is simply delusional fear perpetuated by radical activists.
“Show me some actual data (not your BS, back of the envelope extrapolation) that people using these extremely common medications present some danger and I’ll listen.”
What do you suppose the professional protocols for dispensing such medications might be and why? Look those two things up and I’m betting you’ll find your answers. What does “common drugs” have to do with anything?
ANYBODY prescibed or with record of neuroleptics, Lithium, Tardive Dyskinesia type drugs should be barred from gun ownership automatically. Those seeking clinical counselling or therapy for ‘skirting’ any of the above psychological and social behaviors should be flagged and barred until such time as released by a competent and licensed authority. That would be a responsible starting place!
Anyone prescribed neuroleptics, eh? What about the adjunct use of Seroquel or Zyprexa for depression? Just because a person has an episode of depression they should be banned from owning firearms, in the absence of any psychotic behavior, threats, or evidence of crimes?
By your standard, a person with hiccups may not own a gun, if they were prescribed Thorazine. Thorazine is indicated for hiccups, you know.
Zeke is nothing but a rabidly-frothing, liberal lapdog. You guys shouldn’t even acknowledge his existence. He reminds me, unfortunately, of my much younger brother; playing devil’s advocate because he thinks he’s been taught to think.
@ Seraph
Its your attitude and the majority of PJM that will assure the GOP remains a minority party for a long time. Of the 300 million adults 18 and up, only 112 million are registered republicans and only 54% of them at best, votes. By all indications your tea party and its vile mentality, represent only 20% at best of the voting republicans with national acceptance polling at just above that of congress. As long as you people remain as arrogant radical dividers rather than uniters you will only isolate more and more people within the GOP and across the nation as a whole. Congratulations losers!
Its your attitude and the majority of PJM that will assure the GOP remains a minority party for a long time.
Why? Because progressivism and “feel-think” is the way to go. You want to ban something because it makes you feel better? I remind you of world history where every single dictatorship was preceded by heavy gun-control.
Of the 300 million adults 18 and up, only 112 million are registered republicans and only 54% of them at best, votes.
Much to your chagrin. Your fomenting of distaste and your “down-your-nose” attitude indicates that you believe your way of thinking to be far superior and thus, you denigrate people who understand and believe in The Constitution, as written and not as some holistic “living” document.
By all indications your tea party and its vile mentality, represent only 20% at best of the voting republicans with national acceptance polling at just above that of congress.
“By ALL indications”. Really? Which “indications” would those be? The ones that agree with YOUR point of view or the ones that agree with a conservatives? Why do you prefer to try to diminish a differing viewpoint? Why do you embrace socialism? Why do you think that an elected gaggle of unemployable self-aggrandizing intellectuals, supported by sycophantic lapdog media-types have all the answers? Are you that ignorant or are you just a superior life-form?
As long as you people remain as arrogant radical dividers rather than uniters you will only isolate more and more people within the GOP and across the nation as a whole.
Who has said, “bitter clingers”?,
“jackass”,
“I mean, I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”,
“The Cambridge police acted stupidly.”,
“I won.”,
“I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”,
“Why can’t I just eat my waffle?”,
“But she is a typical white person…”,
“If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” ,
“But I don’t want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don’t mind cleaning up after them, but don’t do a lot of talking.” ,
“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times …”,
” I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest…”,
“I don’t believe it is possible to transcend race in this country. “Race is a factor in this society. The legacy of Jim Crow and slavery has not gone away. It is not an accident that African-Americans experience high crime rates, are poor, and have less wealth. It is a direct result of our racial history.” ,
“It was usually an effective tactic, another one of those tricks I had learned: (White) People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves.”,
“That’s just how white folks will do you. It wasn’t merely the cruelty involved; I was learning that black people could be mean and then some. It was a particular brand of arrogance, an obtuseness in otherwise sane people that brought forth our bitter laughter. It was as if whites didn’t know that they were being cruel in the first place. Or at least thought you deserving of their scorn.”
Yup, the guy who sits in the president’s chair said all that and much, much more. You’ve fallen in love with a dictator. Hope you enjoy it.
Apply that same set of standards to our political class, and you’ve got a deal.
Ward – I would most certainly agree that more tough standards be applied to background investigations of our elected and appointed political class!!!!! Enough of this, admitting to anti-social behaviors and felonies and suh a voluntary addmission makes it all okay!!!!
And how many drugs are used for dual purpose? Will they even take the purpose of the prescription into consideration when they’re looking at what you’ve taken over the years? I’ve never been depressive, but I did take an anti-depressant … for migraines. And I’m not alone. I’ve also taken blood pressure medications and anti-seizure medications for those same migraines. Needless to say, I have never had high blood pressure or seizures, either.
High blood pressure isn’t a sign of mental illness. It is a respiratory system problem. Seizures can come from a host of health problems which are totally unrelated to mental health. But, firearm possession is a known pathology as identified by your Center for Disease Control. These bastards don’t even need your medical records to claim you are mentally ill. The fix is already in, folks. The only real problem for them is how to collect the citizen’s firearms without getting killed by the citizens.
No. I underwent a suspicious fishing expedition recently by a doctor. It took me a while to realize that he had information that I had received pain killers several months earlier. The notes did not tell him that I had had broken bones as a result of a fall and had initially rejected the pain killers until I couldn’t tolerate the pain. He suspected drug-seeking because I had received them in an Emergency Room. And that’s a doctor. Wait until it’s a cop.
There are tons of “mentally ill” people walking around. That they are all capable of mass murder is utterly absurd. Look at the major mass murderers in history. Were any of them ever in a psychiatic hospital? Whether or not they should have been is another matter. But some of the deciders definitely should be if it were up to a vote. For instance, this guy:
Geoffrey Miller
Evolutionary psychologist, NYU Stern Business School and University of New Mexico; author of The Mating Mind and Spent
Chinese Eugenics
China has been running the world’s largest and most successful eugenics program for more than thirty years, driving China’s ever-faster rise as the global superpower. I worry that this poses some existential threat to Western civilization. Yet the most likely result is that America and Europe linger around a few hundred more years as also-rans on the world-historical stage, nursing our anti-hereditarian political correctness to the bitter end.
See the rest:
http://edge.org/responses/q2013
Are prescriptions relevant when it comes to flagging those who shouldn’t bear arms even though some still claim the right is protected by the second amendment of the Constitution?
I’ll say.
Prescriptions for Paxil are a perfect example. As you probably know, Paxil is one of many drugs designed to lower the stress level of, for example, admitted supporters of an amendment as relevant today as the horse and buggy: The second.
Since almost all Paxil users these days are upset over the end to what they consider God given rights to own guns, most anybody taking Paxil or any mood modifying drug should be prohibited from owning a gun, which is simply common sense.
In fact, in Connecticut, the very state where second amendment gun bearing protection was exposed as folly, some wing nuts, undoubtedly popping mood elevating pills, are exposing a patently dangerous idea to the public; an idea the President is foursquare against.
Here’s their zany proposal.
On Thursday, July 4, so called Independence Day, they’re asking all gun owners at exactly 5pm EST to fire their weapons 21 times in succession, mimicking the 21 gun salute, an action which they say honors the freedom that has been permitted to flourish in America for the last 230 or so years.
This highly unusual salute to freedom, however, ignores the need to outfit the population with proper ear protection; ear plugs.
Regardless, President Obama expects a rash of ear plug buying because of this over-the-top and patently illegal celebration of freedom, and has issued a Presidential Directive that adds any ear plug purchasers between June 4 and July 5 to those flagged as not being mentally suited for firearm or ammunition ownership.
Yes, straw purchasers of ear plugs will be prosecuted.
I would be remiss if I didn’t let you know that there are presently 178 mood altering drugs on President Obama’s “no shoot” list. Fortunately, as we speak, the list is being sent to drug stores all over the nation.
I, personally, would rock the world of second amendment misfit supporters this way.
I’d immediately reprint the Constitution eliminating the second amendment completely which would be easy for Obama to do with a simple executive order. Happily, I hear that his inner circle is considering this as one of Obama’s options to ensure that our children are protected like never before; so a massacre like Sandy Hook never happens again.
Tonight when you hit your knees, pray that Allah gives our President the strength he needs to transform his nation into a gun free zone. In view of President Obama’s early actions in his second term, no one, not even his most ardent, Un-American opponents can say that he’s not doing a magnificent job. In fact, the President is considering making illegal any group of more than 50 protesting our President in word or deed.
President Obama truly is one magnificent human being who’s making the world a better place.
Chelease said, “On Thursday, July 4, so called Independence Day, they’re asking all gun owners at exactly 5pm EST to fire their weapons 21 times in succession, mimicking the 21 gun salute, an action which they say honors the freedom that has been permitted to flourish in America for the last 230 or so years.”
This is a FANTASTIC idea. You heard it at PJM first, folks! Who’s in?
To be safe, fire at an approved target.
Don’t tell me that a walking around human being, someone who can actually walk and chew gum at the same time, wrote these outrageously ridiculous sentences.
“I’d immediately reprint the Constitution eliminating the second amendment completely which would be easy for Obama to do with a simple executive order. Happily, I hear that his inner circle is considering this as one of Obama’s options to ensure that our children are protected like never before; so a massacre like Sandy Hook never happens again.”
So many morons, so little time.
In all fairness I think the post was obvious sarcasm, a parody of the position held by the obamunists.
What about the approximately 30 million Americans who take Prozac or other SSRI for treatment of mild-to-serious depression? Does anyone doubt that administration bureaucrats will be sorely tempted to use such commonplace drugs to deny 2nd amendment rights to millions?
Even better question: how about the effects of all of those metabolized drugs mixed together in our drinking water?
We all need to talk to our kids, when they are teenagers, as part of doctor visits, they are often given questionnaires to complete. I’ve instructed mine to leave it blank, I accompany them to appointments and step out of the room for part of the appointment so they can talk to the doctor in private. We trust our doctor but my kids get it, they see what’s happening and are careful how to respond to questions.
The No Buy List is a real threat and I have no confidence the GOP Leadership can step up to protect our liberties as they are responsible for giving away so many of our rights. Has the GOP ever said a word about the massive $2 billion server farm built by NSA out in Utah? and we all know Google / Telco companies are joined at the hip with this Administration.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/
If you take “Life” You may have the following side effects:
Irritability, stress, PTSD, depression, suicidal ideation, mood swings, irritable bowels, fatigue, anger, rage, frustration, sadness, happiness, fun, enui, melancholy, heartbreak, intestinal parasites, and a mild case of death.
Uh oh.
It is interesting to me that what put this train in motion was NASPER, a completely unconstitutional invasion of privacy and liberty – passed by an all-Republican Congress and signed by a Republican President. How many “conservatives” at the time were saying that this law was justified because of the good intentions – that reducing the “abuse” of pain killers was a sufficient reason to abridge every adult’s freedom? How many “conservatives” were willing to stand up on principle against the government dictating what substances individuals may ingest?
Every such abridgment of freedom lays the foundation for further usurpations. The Constitution gives government the power to punish people that violate the rights of others – either directly through use of force, or indirectly through the genuine threat of force or its corollary, fraud. A government which claims it is acting to prevent such violations, but without objective evidence against the particular individuals whose freedom it is restricting, is a tyranny. It may be a petty tyranny, but, the more such infringements accumulate, the more absolute the tyranny becomes. And future government officials will never miss the chance to build on the usurpations of its predecessors.
Absolutely. You point out something I’ve been saying for awhile now. A good deal of the “progressive’s” power comes from their use of the groundwork laid by their naive Republican predecessors. The statists masquerading as “liberals” today take every conservative abuse of power, and supersize it to their own ends. As much as they love to complain about the “war on drugs” or the “war on terror” or the patriot act when those things are passed, deep down they love it because it grants the state more power, power which they can then expand on and abuse to their own ends when they wield the reigns of government. Bush served as little more than a useful idiot to set the table for the feast of the totalitarians.
Maybe they should use your prescription record at the DMV some people dont need to be driving. And I surely dont want someone on anti-psychotic medication buying guns.
I see. You’d rather have them OFF their anti-psychotics and buying guns?
Because that’s what happens with these laws, every time laws like this are tried, and they’ve been tried plenty in other circumstances. People quit going to their mental health care providers, go off their meds and problems ensue. These people may be crazy, but they’re not stupid.
Once again Obama is assuming the status quo will remain the status quo. He assumes that he can raise taxes and everyone will pay their taxes the same as they have without moving income overseas or finding tax loopholes. He ignores the fact that people adapt to stimuli. Some people who should get help would not get mental health help that they need in order to preserve their ability to hunt or target practice or whatever.
Who decides if you are too crazy to have your second amendment rights protected?
Nutty Joe?
One big reason why mental health records should be kept private is that otherwise people simply won’t come in for help, and that’s worse for society than stopping the occasional criminal based on his medical records.. I remember back when the issue of the day was prosecuting pregnant women for testing positive for crack cocaine. Well, they just quit coming to the doctor- so then, not only were they addicted but they weren’t getting any prenatal care, either, and their babies were worse off than before the law went into effect. Over the years that kind of law has largely fallen by the wayside.
This isn’t any different. Really, there is no good solution to the issue of crazy people getting ahold of weapons aside from increasing the availability of mental health professionals, or potentially reconsidering the idea of long-term involuntary hospitalization. The unintended effects of laws like this are really huge- all kinds of people will simply stop showing up at the psychiatrist’s office, with untold effects on their families and associates.
I would expect the number of murders to go UP- possibly significantly so- if this law were to pass. But they won’t be headline-grabbers, it’ll just be the wife down the street, or the kid at your kid’s high school. But they’ll be dead all the same, except the the pols and pundits won’t care.
A fair number of our mass shooters/slaughterers have seen shrinks and have been on (and off) prescription psychotropic meds of all sorts.
The giant, gaping hole in Sandy Hook reporting
I’m not saying they weren’t seeing shrinks or taking meds. But at least there was a hope that they could have been adequately treated, and the massacres prevented.
Right now, we have no idea how many lives HAVE been saved due to psychiatric care. Pass a law like this, and that care will go away. And then we’ll find out.
I think that people miss the point that having a history of taking medications means that the disorder is actually under control because it’s treated. This law will deter people from getting treatment, you can take that to the bank. The only thing worse than having partially-treated psychotics running around with guns is having untreated psychotics running around with guns.
That is, having a history of taking meds CAN mean the disorder is under control, didn’t mean to imply that it always is. But for a lot of people the drugs actually do work.
Perhaps. But in the case of at least one guy, Eric Harris, Columbine, on (and off) Luvox and apparently other meds, a direct role of the medication itself has been implicated in unstable personality.
Don’t you find it ironic that “suicidial ideation” may be a side effect with many of these drugs, especially in the under-developed human brain, i.e., young people whose brains are still developing ?
As for psychiatry, the movie shooter in Aurora Colo had been seeing a shrink for some time. In fact, she complained after the massacre that her warnings about him had gone unheeded.
Me, I’ll just avoid the chemical route when feeling under stress. These substances are way too easily prescribed in the US.
Over 90% of prescriptions written in the world for Ritalin are written in the United States.
Something very rotten in Denmark, as the saying goes.
There are a number of things wrong with both psychiatry & the medications used in that field.
However, just like many other aspects of life, when everything goes well, no one ever finds out about it. In the past I worked in psychiatric hospitals and I’ve seen what a miracle some of these drugs can be. It is absolutely amazing to see a person with bipolar disease or schizophrenia go from stark raving mad (I mean REALLY delusional) to lucid and fairly normal in a week or two. And of course, I’ve seen the reverse when they go off their meds.
Passing a law like this is going to mean a huge segment of the population is simply going to stop going to the psychiatrist. I’m enough of a believer in some of the things psychiatry can do to think that is a very, very bad idea, indeed. And the people who are going to pay for it are not just the crazy folk, but their loved ones as well.
I’m not advocating this law by any stretch.
Just pointing out, as did the link I offered, that many of these shooters/killers are already in the “mental health” system and that the overly exaggerated prescription impulse in psychiatry may actually be rendering the unstable personality even less stable.
(for example, Paxil’s known drug reactions include anxiety, agitation, confusion, depression, paranoid reaction, depression, hostility, psychosis, abnormal thinking, depersonalization, lack of emotion…among others.)
My own experience on a mental health ward (lockdown) of a hospital was with a guy who had to be literally held down while they dumped the anxiety/psychosis meds into his system, and then suffer a burning sensation down his esophagus and stomach.
It seemed macabre, the psychiatrists more keepers than doctors.
I think part of the reason why psychiatrists rely so heavily on drugs (and also seem like keepers) is that there aren’t enough of them bto go around. They have no time to talk- that’s for psychologists, if you’re lucky enough to be able to get in to see a good one.
For example, in Montana there is a horribly high suicide rate and not a single psychiatrist in the entire eastern half of the state. It’s a very tough profession and emotionally quite taxing. Ironically, they also have the highest suicide rate among physicians.
That is one reason priests have defied court orders to testify about what they heard during Confession. If they begin telling what they hear, they know people will stop going to Confession. People have many conditions and ailments that they don’t really want their doctor to tell the world at large. If doctors become informants, people will stop trusting doctors.
Dec 30, 2009
Switzerland has the lowest crime rate in the world,because the people are armed,basic military is mandatory for men,and after wards they are required to keep their weapon at home.A crook will think twice about breaking into houses knowing this,people who think the world should get rid of guns should think again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ufkwTM82e4
As true as those arguments may be, they are irrelevant to the “conversation” the people in DC want to have, because as the saying goes, “It’s not about guns, it’s about control.”
Voting has consequences. So does not bothering to vote. It doesn’t surprise me that the obamabots voted for that POS again. The annoying thing is that so many people didn’t bother to vote. I suppose they justified it because the Republican candidate wasn’t pure enough for them. The Paul-bots have no one but themselves to blame. I hope a lot of them end up in the tsunami of less than 30 hour/week workers. Having to buy their own insurance coverage w/o company help is just what they deserve. And obama’s IRS will be sure that they do get insurance. Cheers!
I’ve been commenting on this since the first day after Newtown when gun rights were addressed as a mental health issue. While I think the ACLU was probably wrong to restrict involuntary commitment, thereby dumping thousands of the mentally ill onto the streets to sleep on sewer grates and otherwise struggle with life, and while it certainly is important to keep firearms out of the hands of criminals, including the criminally insane, I am particularly worried about subsuming gun rights into a greater mental health picture.
Now facilitated by ObamaCare, the government has not only the will but the easy ability and the social argument to restrict Constitutional rights based on statistical analysis from the CDC, and spurious pragmatism theories of what is best for society, and what “saves a single life”, but also who is sane enough for government bureaucracies to let you enjoy your freedoms.
We are now going to be incompetent until proven competent to own a gun.
Confiscation is inevitable. But what comes after that? What is the next Amendment to be regulated away?
@ Flagra Solaris
First, you make a lot of self serving assmumptions! I posted real numbers from census, from repbulican rolls and from the tea partys own suggested strength. Take from it what you will but the numbers indicate a very small minority of the adult majority population.
Then you speak to a “living constitution” as if it should be a ‘dead’ constitution to meet your approval. But for irresponsible generations of their contitutional individual freedoms and ‘private sector’ special interest groups lawyers of all parties ‘CHALLENGING’ the constitution it would have remained far less subjective in all its imperfect language — especially those of the bill of rights. I suspect the founders in all their wisdom knew their document of freedoms would be abused and they also knw that their lnaguage in the document was nor, by design all encompassing. They therfore, ‘made it a point’ to leave to the States in some instance and to congress (legislate) and the supreme court (to interpret) in all other instances, ‘whats not specifically’ addressed in the constitution. This is the part so many self serving special interest people want to ignore in the constitution and otherwise have no respect for it.
Then you speak to “diminishing’ others points of view. With the following of people on PJM, uour inference is akin to the kettle calling the pot black! What you fail to consider is the najority of the nations point of view on any given subject matter. Deferring once again, to the constitution! The founders determined and established a system of majority rules for this new nation while at the same time protecting the indivual rights of the minority position. Thats why they established the democratic electoral process of representation through the many districts of the land by population. Thats why they established the majority voting process in the two houses of congress. Thats why they established the separations of power and the check and balances.
Finally! Your conflict is NOT really with those ‘people’ who disagree with you on any given point. Your conflict is with the constitution that allows for a majority perspective to to rule. From 2000 through 2008, it was the democrats who ascribed to your exact same whinning and disrespect for the constitutional processes of the land. Since 2009 to present, its a segement of the GOP who is whinning and disrespecting the constitutional processes.
EVERY American citizen has a constitutional recourse for their grievances. IF you really fee that your constitutional issues or any other issues stand up as legitimate, then you should to pursue them using that constitutional right. Otherwise, all your verbage and sparring knowledge and wit, is nothing more then self gratifying waste. As for me, I believe in the constitutionand its processes. Sometimes, the outcomes are more to my liking and sometimes not. But this I can assure you! A divided nation of people made enemies to another or a divided party made enemies to one another — FALLS!
On and on and on goes the Gun Control debate while EVERYONE involved deliberately ignores the ‘Elephant in the room’. America could ‘at a stroke’ cut violent crime and murders in HALF – how you ask ? Well by casting aside Multi Culti Political Correctness and waking up to the fact that OVER 50% of all the murders and OVER 60% of all the violent crimes in the USA are perpetrated by a miniscule 2% of the US population and springs from an uncivilized, anti social, degenerate culture in your midst. Who and what am I talking about why Black CULTURE and BLACK youths between the ages of 14 and 25 (think Trayvon Martin). You all know this to be true yet hide your head in the sand and do everything you can not to admit it.
Get them under control and no need for Gun Control as the job will be 50% done at a stroke and America will become a far less violent much more civilized nation.
Setting races against each other is original, prag. No one has ever thought of that before. What a free thinker you are.
No wonder the Scientologists don’t like psychiatrists.
“Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?” said Dr. Ferris. “We want them broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against – then you’ll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We’re after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you’d better get wise to it. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now, that’s the system, Mr. Rearden, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.” – Atlas Shrugged
See RSFSR Penal Code Article 58.
“One can find more epithets in praise of this article than Turgenev once assembled to praise the Russian language, or Nekrasov to praise Mother Russia: great, powerful, abundant, highly ramified, multiform, wide sweeping 58, which summed up the world not so much through the exact terms of its sections as in their extended diacritical interpretation.
Who among us has not experienced its all-encompassing embrace? In all truth, there is no step, thought, action, or lack of action under the heavens which could not be punished by the heavy hand of Article 58. –Aleksandr Solzhenitsin