Source: https://www.concordlawschool.edu/blog/constitutional-law/access-to-guns-and-the-mentally-ill/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 12:21:04+00:00

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Those with a mental illness that renders them unable to manage their own affairs, or those who have been adjudged to be mentally ill with a propensity for dangerousness to self and others, would be precluded from purchasing a firearm. The result was an outcry, but not along the usual partisan lines.
In critical responses by what otherwise might be deemed strange political bedfellows, both the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) opposed the Obama era regulation on Constitutional grounds. The NRA argued that the rule violated an individual’s Second Amendment rights, while the ACLU argued that it was unconstitutional for the executive branch to act summarily as prosecutor, judge, and jury to deprive individuals with the identified illnesses of their Second, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment rights. This set up an apparent conflict among the different constitutional protections and raised multiple issues: Does the Second Amendment’s prohibition against government infringement upon an individual’s right to keep and bear arms trump (a) the government’s obligation to provide for the general welfare and the states’ sovereign police powers, and (b) an individual’s right to due process of law when one agency of government summarily acts in a legislative and judiciary role?
The regulation was rolled back by a House of Representatives vote shortly after the new Trump administration took office. Although on its face, it seemed as if the House were giving guns to the dangerously mentally ill, the real argument involved the reach of executive agencies into the Bill of Rights so as to modify and restrict their application to certain individuals. Had not the House rolled back the executive order, this issue would have most likely reached the U.S. Supreme Court for a resolution.
In a corollary controversy, Florida in 2011 enacted into law the Firearms Owners’ Privacy Act (FOPA).2 FOPA, dubbed “Docs v. Glocks” by the press, restricted doctors and health care professionals in general from asking their patients or clients about firearms in their homes unless, very specifically and in “good faith,” a question about a patient’s or patient’s family’s gun ownership was “relevant” to the patient’s or family’s safety or care. The intent of the NRA-supported legislation, the physicians and physician interest groups argued in Wollschlaeger v. Florida,3 was really to prevent family practice physicians and pediatricians from discussing gun safety with families, and so raised the issue of a potential conflict between the health care workers’ First Amendment right to free speech against the patients’ Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms—both of which apply to the states under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The decision provided support for the prerogative of medical practitioners to protect the health and safety of their patients by separating the claim of an “infringement” under the Second Amendment from a content-based infringement under the First Amendment, thus using a constitutional basis to skirt the issue of a state’s regulation of the advice given to patients by physicians.
In the seminal case of Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California,7 the Supreme Court of California held that a mental health practitioner, in this case working for the University of California, had a duty to warn and a duty to protect a potential victim from a potential perpetrator of a violent crime who posed a threat to the potential victim, even when disclosing that threat may be a violation of the doctor/patient privilege. Failure to warn or protect would make the practitioner liable for damages in negligence.
The Lessard and Tarasoff cases both deal with the constitutional rights of the mentally ill and those likely to be harmed by a mentally ill individual. Lessard held that an individual with a mental illness doesn’t forfeit constitutional rights and is still guaranteed due process of law. Tarasoff holds that a mental health practitioner must use professional judgment in weighing the danger his or her patient may pose to another individual and thus, notwithstanding the protected nature of communications between doctor and patient, has an absolute duty to warn and protect that individual. These cases, as well as the recent Wollschlaeger “Docs v. Glocks” case in Florida, demonstrate that the American criminal and civil justice systems are in the throes of a struggle to determine the nature of individual rights versus the rights of the public for protection from the dangerously mentally ill.
Unfortunately, because of the closure of many state mental health institutions since the Reagan-era “mainstreaming” of the mentally ill (resulting in a cost-shifting from the public health budget to the states’ emergency services budgets), much of the burden of dealing with the dangerously mentally ill has fallen upon law enforcement and first responders. We must wait to see whether this new administration and, in particular, the new Secretary of Health and Human Services, can find a resolution to the plight of the mentally ill, including our military veterans suffering from PTSD.
Dr. William J. Birnes, JD ’06, is a New York Times bestselling author, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, a literary agent, and the Chairman of the Board at Sunrise Community Counseling Center in Los Angeles, and has worked as a writer/consulting producer for the History Channel. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not represent the view of Concord Law School at Purdue University Global, including its parent companies, subsidiaries, and affiliates.
1 Federal Register. Vol. 81, No. 243 (December 19, 2016), (20 CFR Part 421 [Docket No. SSA–2016–0011] RIN 0960–AH95).
2 Fla. Stat. §§ 790.338, 456.072, 395.1055, & 381.026.
3 Wollschlaeger v. Governor, Florida, No. 12-14009, 2017 WL 632740 (11th Cir. Feb. 16, 2017).
5 Lessard v. Schmidt 349 F. Supp. 1078 (E.D. Wis. 1972); and 414 U.S. 473 (1974) on appeal from Schmidt after with the Court upheld the original ruling granting plaintiff Lessard injunctive relief against the State of Wisconsin.
6 Liebert, John A., M.D. and William J. Birnes, Ph.D., Psychiatric Criminology, Boca Raton, FL.: CRC Press, 2017.
7 17 Cal. 3d 425, 551 P.2d 334, 131 Cal. Rptr. 14 (Cal. 1976).
8 Tarasoff v. Regents of Univ. of California, 17 Cal. 3d 425, 439, 551 P.2d 334, 345 (1976).

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