United States & Gun Control discussion.

[Downtown “Funky Stuff” Malone🍆]

Because there is all sorts of violent crime that doesn't get the same amount of traction as violence perpetrated with firearms. In this case, since we are discussing firearm related violence, the term 'gun violence' is easier to use.

Just call it violence then. Hell, call it human violence. Charge the human with the act not the tool used.

 

[Red Flag 1]

A qu

 

[R.Caerbannog]

@Malone

Just call it violence then. Hell, call it human violence. Charge the human with the act not the tool used.

I get what you're saying, but in this case I'm advocating against criminals who specifically use firearms as a way to disproportionately apply force to a civilian populace. There are a bunch of things way more violent and intimate than firearms, but I figured I should stay on the topic at hand.

 

[Downtown “Funky Stuff” Malone🍆]

@Downtown “Funky Stuff” Malone

I get what you're saying, but in this case I'm advocating against criminals who specifically use firearms as a way to disproportionately apply force to a civilian populace. There are a bunch of things way more violent and intimate than firearms, but I figured I should stay on the topic at hand.

When you call it gun violence you vilify the wrong part of the act. I'll state again, in no other violent act do we blame the tool used. the ease of your conversation creates a biased view of an inatimate object.

 

[Downtown “Funky Stuff” Malone🍆]

Ok ladies and gents. We are all members of the profession of of arms. We should be able to disagree without coming to verbal blows. We are brother and sisters and should be able to have civil discussion.

I will ask @ShadowSpear to allow all offending parties back into to the thread. If after a second chance they continue to behave like temperamental children allow @AWP to drop the ban hammer.

This issue needs attention and stifling it does no benifit to any of us.

 

[Downtown “Funky Stuff” Malone🍆]

I subscribe to no political party. I am a patriot and I believe in the ideas of our founding fathers. I want nothing more than for my countrymen to be safe, but I will not relinquish my god given rights for a false sense of safety for the sake of our children.

 

[ShadowSpear]

Ok ladies and gents. We are all members of the proeffsion of of arms. We should be able to disagree without coming to verbal blows. We are brother and sisters and should be able to have civil discussion.

I will ask @ShadowSpear to allow all offending parties back into to the thread. If after a second chance they continue to behave like temperamental children allow @AWP to drop the ban hammer.

This issue needs attention and stifling it does no benifit to any of us.

The best I’m willing to do is reduce it to 24 hrs. They wasted my time with the juvenile bullshit so they have to pay the man.

 

[DC]

The percentage of mental illness has not changed that much over the years. What has changed is the care and tracking of the mentally ill.

This is huge

 

[ThunderHorse]

Diagnosis categories ranged from severe psychotic disturbance to mental retardation and simply needed folks to watch out for them.

In California, up until the Mid-2000s we still had facilities for the severely disabled. My Aunt was one them. She now, somehow, lives in a group home. She was admitted to Lanterman Developmental Center when she was 10. She was blind and deaf when she was born, she became mute a bit later. My mother sees her sister often, but I'm not a supporter of the group home concept with how much care is required. My aunt was somehow on the lower end of that spectrum. There were 22 of these State Hospitals separate from the California Mental Health hospitals that existed.

 

[Downtown “Funky Stuff” Malone🍆]

The best I’m willing to do is reduce it to 24 hrs. They wasted my time with the juvenile bullshit so they have to pay the man.

That is an acceptable compromise. Thank you.

 

[DC]

This whole issue needs to focus on the criminal and/or mental heath issues of use of a weapon to commit these acts. Intel, protective measures are a good proactive start.

 

[AWP]

That is an acceptable compromise. Thank you.

Please be aware that the staff is tired of this behavior. I say this to everyone, first both Trump threads and now this, if you can't take some of the emotion out of your post, if you are incapable of discussing a topic without personal attacks, then either stay out of a thread or "get got." We've banned members over this, people we like, so none of you are immune. We actually had a staff member send the rest of us a message: please watch this thread. I'm at work and can't keep an eye on this mess.

It isn't a person's message, but their delivery. Deliver like UPS or we'll deliver like a Ju-87.

Carry on, everyone.

 

[AWP]

I love it when background checks are brought up because it ties into an earlier observation: enforce the laws on the books. A dirty "secret" missed in the discussion: the system is broken...literally the system that handles the background checks. Submitting data is voluntary and the system is understaffed and runs on antiquted equipment. You're talking a billion plus dollars easily for the network and hundreds of new investigators just to make the current process work...and this is without any additional laws to further burden the system.

If you have a truck that can barely tow a boat, don't buy a bigger boat; You either downsize the boat or buy a bigger truck.

 

[CQB]

So background checks can be part of the mix, good idea. We've heard mental health being discussed & the bump stock debate again. POTUS doesn't have a tin ear when it comes to his constituents and this may result in some steps forward.

 

[Ranger Psych]

I love it when background checks are brought up because it ties into an earlier observation: enforce the laws on the books. A dirty "secret" missed in the discussion: the system is broken...literally the system that handles the background checks. Submitting data is voluntary and the system is understaffed and runs on antiquted equipment. You're talking a billion plus dollars easily for the network and hundreds of new investigators just to make the current process work...and this is without any additional laws to further burden the system.

If you have a truck that can barely tow a boat, don't buy a bigger boat; You either downsize the boat or buy a bigger truck.

This is what gun owners have been screaming for years, because all of us who have them that are clean, positive members of society, don't want trashbads to have guns either. Just because I like guns doesn't mean I like everyone who has guns.

 

[CQB]

I wasn't aware of that push & I hope the creaky system can reform.

 

[Ranger Psych]

I wasn't aware of that push & I hope the creaky system can reform.

Issue number one is state compliance. There's quite a few states that don't actually submit their lists of prohibited persons up to the federal level. Think if you guys still allowed guns on a wider level. Someone gets a conviction bad enough to be restricted in Sydney. They move to Brisbane. Sydney didn't put their conviction into the system... now, even though THEY know they're prohibited, they go to try to buy a gun on a whim.... and get approved, because their record isn't in the system.

That happens. Federal restrictions on domestic violence can't be enforced because they don't get submitted. Oregon's legislature is chest thumping right now because they just, literally/specifically/retardedly, made a state version of the Lautenberg Amendment which makes anyone who has a domestic violence conviction OR a restraining order with DV as a reason for the order, unable to posses or purchase firearms.

The other aspect is that if you do a purchase specifically to hand the gun over to someone else out the gate, it's supposed to be illegal. Proper gifts don't apply, but if you're giving it to a restricted person that shouldn't have a gun and can't buy it themselves, then it's a straw purchase and a federal felony. Just like if you lie on the paperwork.

The feds have like 48 convictions for 48,000 current falsifications/straw purchases that were logged. How these people are still walking around is on the system, not the legal gun owner.

The system is actually rigorous and thorough in design, the problem is enforcement.

 

[Downtown “Funky Stuff” Malone🍆]

The Air Force failed to report people to the Feds.

 

[CQB]

Issue number one is state compliance. There's quite a few states that don't actually submit their lists of prohibited persons up to the federal level. Think if you guys still allowed guns on a wider level. Someone gets a conviction bad enough to be restricted in Sydney. They move to Brisbane. Sydney didn't put their conviction into the system... now, even though THEY know they're prohibited, they go to try to buy a gun on a whim.... and get approved, because their record isn't in the system.

That happens. Federal restrictions on domestic violence can't be enforced because they don't get submitted. Oregon's legislature is chest thumping right now because they just, literally/specifically/retardedly, made a state version of the Lautenberg Amendment which makes anyone who has a domestic violence conviction OR a restraining order with DV as a reason for the order, unable to posses or purchase firearms.

The other aspect is that if you do a purchase specifically to hand the gun over to someone else out the gate, it's supposed to be illegal. Proper gifts don't apply, but if you're giving it to a restricted person that shouldn't have a gun and can't buy it themselves, then it's a straw purchase and a federal felony. Just like if you lie on the paperwork.

The feds have like 48 convictions for 48,000 current falsifications/straw purchases that were logged. How these people are still walking around is on the system, not the legal gun owner.

The system is actually rigorous and thorough in design, the problem is enforcement.

So there's some work to be done & with 50 states...
We have similar concerning DV, with a type of writ issued here known as an AVO (Apprehended Violence Order) putting restrictions on a person approaching another. They are virtually worthless, & don't really do much at all except to prevent purchase & ownership for 10 years. Yep, you read it correctly. IMO very severe but gives one pause to think. If an owner gets hit by one, bye bye guns...equally for 10 years.
I'm not suggesting that this should be adopted where you are, I'm contributing to a tyre kicking for a solution as the circumstances are different in the US, but we don't have the enforcement problem that looks to be the norm Stateside, our cops are on it.

 

[RackMaster]

A question to ask, is "How many are mentally ill and should not have access to weapons?" The answer is rather elusive today and a look into out history may provide some insight. I have typed and deleted this twice, I think it needs looking at.

If you look at mental health care back to the early 1900's and up through the 1960's you will find that there were large mental health facilities with staggering inpatient populations. Looking at just NY State shows around half a dozen or more Hospitals managed by the NYS Dept of Mental Hygiene. Patient populations range from 2,500 in Binghamton, NY to the huge Pilgrim State Hospital which was just one facility for NYC. It was where "One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest" was filmed, and saw numbers over 10,000, and there was still a couple more in and around NYC. The numbers showed a large percentage of the population that required inpatient beds for mental illness. The percentage of people needing mental health care stayed pretty constant up to the early 1970s. These hospitals were a large institution that was self-sufficient and was very separate from the surrounding communities. Institutions had large farms, bakeries, laundry shops, carpenter shops, police/fire Depts., etc to the point of needing nothing from the "outside world". Patients who were able to actually worked in the shops, on the farms, landscaping, and other parts of the institution. The institutions were expensive to maintain and took a pretty large chunk of state budgets.

Patients required different levels of care. Some were nursing home patients with nowhere else to go and they pretty much were bed or bed to chair patients on wards of 40-50 patients. Patients with a true metal disease were divided into two classes. Those who were able to function in the controlled environment of the huge acreage of the institution with staff supervision. The other class were deemed a danger to themselves or others and were on locked inpatient wards. Diagnosis categories ranged from severe psychotic disturbance to mental retardation and simply needed folks to watch out for them. In the 1950s came the first psychoactive agents that had any real clinical impact on diseases like schizophrenia, and other disorders. The side effects were unpleasant and the biggest problem was to trust the patients to actually take their meds. Meds have been refined over the years to reduce the side effects. They are not as bad today, but they are still there and patients are often noncompliant with their meds. The good news was that a percentage of the patients were able to transition to outpatient management and reducing the inpatient bed needs by a few percentage points.

In NY State, the money to run these huge institutions began to dry up. Institutions were downsized dramatically with Binghamton State Hospital dropping from 2,500 to 250 patients. Nursing homes sprang up to care for the elderly and the mentally ill were moved to outpatient management. There was no magic pill that made people all better, and the percentage of people suffering from mental disease stayed the same. What changed was, and is, that the former patients now interfaced with the general population. Patients were, and are, still noncompliant with meds because of the side effects of antipsychotic agents. Not all the patients had family or friends to house them, and they have trouble maintaining any decent employment. This drove up the number of people living on the streets. When behavior becomes dangerous or offensive, LEO is the first contact for the mentally ill. From there the courts and correctional institutions are what shelter, feed and "care for" people with mental illness. The percentage of mental illness has not changed that much over the years. What has changed is the care and tracking of the mentally ill.

It seems to me that with no way of tracking and caring for the mentally ill in our society, they will go untreated, undertreated, and fall through the huge cracks in the system. The possibility of violent interactions between people with mental illness and the rest of our population. The LEO community is not equipped to handle the needs of the mentally ill. LEO and the courts plug them into the outpatient clinics, but there is no way to force them to take their meds and attend outpatient groups. They avoid care because of the stigma mental illness still carries, and because they hate the side effects of the meds. Thus the patients get lost among the homeless and are avoided by everyone else. There is no place to house and care for the mentally ill. There are acute care beds, but the courts limit involuntary stays to the absolute minimum. There are patients who have been involuntarily committed to psych hospitals and those beds are there because our laws say they must be there. There is no place for the others who were for so long patients at the huge mental institutions that were there until the 1970s.

If there are funds allocated for the care of mentally ill patients, and the needed bed spaces are there, the huge chasm that exists can be shrunk. If we can better identify, treat and track our population that needs mental health support, the risk of violent interactions will drop. Today there is no really tight system that identifies and handles our mentally ill. Today they are "treated" by our LEOs, courts, and jails. The go back on the streets with a month of pills and an outpatient clinic appointment. Most of the time the pills get traded off for heroin and the cycle begins again.

That's my $.02 for what it is worth. I have seen to big institutions, and I see what is on the city streets today. They are the same mentally ill people, just in different, and mostly worse places.

Thank you once again for putting into words exactly what I was trying to do.

Until every level of the current system is funded and run properly, as it's intended; this "debate" is useless.