NPR article on access to guns and the mentally ill

[MillCreek]

http://www.npr.org/2012/08/15/158758286/the-law-and-reality-of-gun-access?ft=1&f=1001

A well-reasoned article from NPR on access to firearms and the mentally ill.  I have had some exposure through work with forensic psychiatry, and most of them will freely admit that at best, they have a 50% accuracy rate in trying to predict things like future risk or dangerousness in the mentally ill.  The percentages can be higher in making such predictions for criminals with a violent history.

[Battle Monkey of Zardoz]

Only worry here is who is the authority to label someone mentally ill.

[longeyes]

Well, that's easy.  Have you used the word "Constitution" recently?

[Jamie B]

Well, that's easy.  Have you used the word "Constitution" recently?

Sadly, for this to actually work, those in government are the ones who need to believe.

[brimic]

Gun control has always been a difficult nut for the left to crack. Soon, they will be able to apply the big hammer of obamacare to it.

[Perd Hapley]

Sadly, for this to actually work, those in government are the ones who need to believe.

He's saying that anyone who talks about the Constitution will be labeled as a nut.

[longeyes]

Mad societies produce mad men.  The madder those in power the more madness they will see around them.

I really wonder if the medical establishment wants to run the risk of playing secret police for a regime that loses the respect of its citizens.  They will be on the front line for all the abuses of Obamacare, and don't think they don't understand that.  A man whose wife is denied the critical care he thinks she deserves is going to be a very unhappy man: multiply that by thousands.  Big problem.

[HankB]

. . .  I have had some exposure through work with forensic psychiatry, and most of them will freely admit that at best, they have a 50% accuracy rate (emphasis added) in trying to predict things like future risk or dangerousness in the mentally ill . . .

With predictive accuracy no better than a coin flip, try and convince me that modern psychiatry isn't in large part quackery.

[slingshot]

From the article:

"The payoff in terms of preventing violence would be very little. Indeed, you probably would pay a very heavy price by discouraging people from treatment, which in the long run probably would result in more violence, not less," Bonnie says.

And then there's the slippery slope. Even the deputy police chief in Maine, who was unable to take guns from a mentally unstable man until it was almost too late, concedes that no one wants police deciding someone shouldn't have a gun just because he's wearing a purple suit today.

This is pretty much what would happen and I don't want any LEO deciding I am unfit because I am wearing a purple suit or even my birthday suit.