Moi osi, if you'll excuse my French.Charles L. Cotton wrote:In my view, merely having a court "find" that a person is a danger to himself and/or others, without doing anything to restrict that person's activities, is too low of a standard upon which to deny a right to own a firearm. It means nothing to me if a judge renders an opinion that someone is a danger to himself, but then lets him walk out of the courtroom to tend to his own affairs. (BTW, only a court can adjudicate a matter, but expert testimony from medical professionals will be required to make that determination.)
Doing some poking around in family history because of vaguely recalled stuff I found the record of my wife's grandmother, who was committed on the strength of testimony from the rest of the family, and it appears that it was mostly because her husband wanted her out of the way so he could tomcat around. In a previous generation there was another (probably where he got the idea) who was committed for "feminine hysteria" just on the judge's say so.
Not saying that such abuses would happen today, but the potential always exists in such a judgment based system.
And that one there is as much a reason not to compromise on this issue as any I can think of.Charles L. Cotton wrote:Here is another issue. I have been told that once you are on the NICS "prohibited list" for mental health issues, you will not get off. I have not confirmed this, but it came from a very knowledgeable attorney that deals with NICS issues almost on a daily basis. I would also note that, while there is a federal law that provides a procedure for a person who has lost their right to own a firearm to have that right reinstated, Congress passed a bill that prohibited the use of any federal funds for that purpose. So the procedure exists in law, but, as a matter of law, it cannot be used. I don’t want dangerously incompetent people running around shooting innocent people, but I fear this is a very slippery slope on which we are treading.