From: viking@iastate.edu (Dan Sorenson)
Subject: Re: Background Checks on Mental Illness
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 02:30:57 GMT

 draughn@iitmax.iit.edu (Mark Draughn) writes:

>In article <1992Jul19.212639.25951@igor.tamri.com> donb@igor.tamri.com
>(Don Baldwin) writes:
>[...]
>>Now, what about the psychiatric aspects of the background check?  Maybe
>>involuntary commitment shouldn't be a selection criterion, as people are
>>sometimes commited for the wrong reasons.  Maybe things like making a
>>serious threat in conversation or using the insanity defense in court
>>would be better?

	I like the latter idea of the insanity plea -- if you went insane
enough to do the crime once, there is little reason to believe it won't
happen again, and thus gun ownership (operation without supervision?)
might be warranted.  "Making a serious threat in conversation" I have
a problem with.  Casual conversations (read: male-bonding macho-bullshit
with abusive-language) often has threats in it.  "Make a pun like that again
and I shall be forced to kill you, cremate the body, and spread your
ashes on my carpet while watching a Three Stooges video as penance."  It
is possible this sort of language, while fairly common and understood to
carry no threat, could be used against you.  Similarly, if you find a guy
hitting on your wife and politely tell him to back off else he might find
himself urinating through surgical tubing, this is a genuine threat but one
I find no reason to ban gun ownership for.  Now if it is actually _done_,
what then?  The fact that the jerk is still alive though minus an organ
doesn't strike me as being evidence of a homicidal attacker, and thus
revoking RKBA for the attacker in this case doesn't seem like a need.

>It's my understanding that mentally ill meople are no more violent
>than normal people, but I assume that involuntary commitment is
>usually used only against people with violent tendencies or those with
>a dangerously weak grip on reality.  I could be very wrong about this.

	A data point only: my step-father suffers from a chemical
imbalance in the brain.  His temper has always been fairly quick to
activate, but he never crossed the line into abuse (though I did get
some really good beatings as a teenager, which a social worker might
have seen as abuse).  Anyway, he always thought that having a temper was
unnatural, and so would simply leave the house and drive for several
hours, or do some more work on a project, until he had calmed down.
That he had to control his temper was the part he hated most.  My mother,
being a social worker type and fairly good at spotting this stuff, took
him to a specialist who diagnosed the problem.  He was started on some
drugs to cure the imbalance, and his temper was reduced.  At the same
time, he had extensive psychiatric counselling to deal with the idea that
having a temper is normal, and that controlling it is normal too.  When
he feels "abnormal" he admits himself for counselling and medication,
though job pressures (when ya gotta plant corn ya gotta plant corn!)
may make him wait for a week or so.

	The first time in was involuntary, all others have been voluntary.
He might have been dangerous at one time, but so long as he has the proper
medical care he is no "time bomb."  Perhaps individual cases should be
judged by the psychiatrist and a judge?

<Dan Sorenson, DoD #1066 |"There'll be angels on Ariels in leather>
<z1dan@exnet.iastate.edu | and chrome, Ridin' down from heaven    >
<viking@iastate.edu      | just to carry me home." -- R. Thompson >
< ISU thinks I need more education, which they provide for a fee. >

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