From: boucher@csl.sri.com (Peter K. Boucher)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: Re: Former bank hostage loses right to own hunting guns
Date: 18 Dec 1992 18:00:22 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Lab, SRI International
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: affirmed.csl.sri.com
Keywords: violent crime, legal, gun control, social issues, philanthropy,

Reprinted without permission.

|> 
|> 	QUINCY, Ill. (UPI) -- A man held hostage during a bank holdup last
|> month now considers himself a victim of a state law that denies gun-
|> ownership rights to anyone admitted to a hospital psychiatric ward.
|> 	Bob Havermale, 39, spent one night under observation at St. Mary
|> Hospital in Quincy after a would-be bank robber threatened him with a
|> sawed-off shotgun. He was one of nine hostages held during the six-hour
|> ordeal Nov. 23, which led to the shooting death of a customer at the
|> Town & Country Bank in this city on the Illinois-Iowa border.
|> 	David Dean Cousins, 22, of Quincy was indicted Thursday on five
|> federal charges in connection with the attempted robbery, including bank
|> robbery, two counts of aggravated bank robbery, killing during the
|> commission of a bank robbery and carrying or using a firearm during a
|> federal crime of violence.
|> 	Cousins is being held without bond in the incident, in which he
|> allegedly took $300,000 from the Town and Country Bank and assaulted and
|> ``put in jeopardy the life of Louis Paul McClelland, a bank vice
|> president, and Jesse V. Bagby, a bank customer....''
|> 	Bagby was killed in the robbery attempt.
|> 	Cousins faces from a minimum of 10 years to life in prison and up to
|> $500,000 fines in the case.
|> 	Havermale learned this week that because of the short hospital stay --
|> for what doctors said was ``post-traumatic stress syndrome'' -- the
|> Illinois State Police had revoked his firearm owner's identification
|> card, forcing him to sell or give away several rifles and shotguns he
|> uses for hunting.
|> 	``It's terribly ironic,'' said Havermale, an avid waterfowl hunter. 
|> ``I get threatened with a gun -- and I lose my gun card.''
|> 	Under a 1989 law, the state automatically revokes the cards of anyone
|> admitted to a psychiatric ward.
|> 	Program manager Doug Howard said about 1,700 of the 1 million
|> identification cards in Illinois were taken from gun owners this year
|> after they spent at least one night in a psychiatric ward. State
|> officials know whose cards to revoke because hospitals must report any
|> psychiatric admissions or discharges to the Department of Mental Health.
|> 	Havermale said the law is unfair and plans to file an appeal with the
|> state police.
|> 	Chuck Johnson, psychiatric services director for St. Mary Hospital,
|> has written state officials urging that Havermale be allowed to own guns
|> because ``I did not see where this constituted a danger...to the
|> community.''
|> 	Havermale said if he had known about the card revocation law, he
|> would not have let doctors admit him to the hospital. He had gone to the
|> hospital complaining of chest pains after escaping the bank.
|> 	Johnson said the revocation law ``is very discriminatory'' because it
|> does not distinguish between harmless people who need psychiatric help
|> and others who may pose a threat to society.
|> 	The law sometimes prevents people from seeking psychiatric help
|> because they don't want to lose their cards, Johnson said.

-- 
Peter K. Boucher
--
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