CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 2014 OR THEREAFTER
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 2014 OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“IF NOT ISLA VISTA, WHAT CAN KEEP GUNS FROM MENTALLY ILL?”
As the round of memorial services for
the six students fatally stabbed and shot in late May by the psychotic killer
Elliot Rodger recedes into memory, a serious public policy question remains
even while families and friends are left with their private grief:
If the Isla Vista killings can’t spur
laws to keep guns away from persons diagnosed as mentally ill, what can?
It now seems likely that despite some
big talk from U.S. senators immediately after Rodger’s murderous spree on the
edge of the UC Santa Barbara campus, there is little chance the federal government
will do much. There may be more of a possibility for action by the state
Legislature, far less influenced by the National Rifle Assn. and the gun lobby,
but even there it’s unrealistic to expect anything.
One thing for sure: Every legal expert
agrees that Rodger bought his guns legally, despite having a mental illness diagnosis. One
therapist described him as pre-psychotic. On the day he decided to prove – in
his own words – that he was a true “alpha male,” the prefix came off his
diagnosis and he was just plain psychotic, which Merriam-Webster’s dictionary
defines as “having…a very serious mental illness that makes you act strangely
or believe things that are not true.”
Law professors consulted after the
killings said such a diagnosis does not generally affect a person’s ability to
own a gun, even in California, with some of America’s toughest gun controls.
Rodger, with no criminal record, never
previously having threatened anyone (except in the You Tube videos which were
mostly ignored), never having been deemed a risk to himself or others and no
history of addiction, raised no red flags when purchasing semiautomatic
handguns.
Another certainty in this case: The
fact that Rodger stabbed his first few victims demonstrates that no matter what
controls are put on guns, violent people can still find ways to kill.
But there’s no reason to make it easy
for them. That’s why Democratic U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut
said immediately after Isla Vista that he would try to revive gun legislation
which failed to pass in the aftermath of the 2012 murders of 20 schoolchildren
in Newtown, CT.
Blumenthal said that if Congress fails
to take at least most guns from the mentally ill, it will be complicit in
future shootings.
This, of course, raises many civil
liberties questions: Should a person be deprived of Second Amendment rights if
he or she has never threatened anyone or been deemed a threat to himself or
herself? Should police have the right to search for weapons in the homes and cars
of every mentally ill person, even if those persons appear to be “quiet and
timid,” as Rodger was described by
sheriff’s deputies who visited him shortly before his spree? How can police
determine a gun owner is mentally ill when they’re not mental health
professionals? How can they tell if, like Rodger, someone has refused to take
prescribed anti-psychotic medication?
Blumenthal said his legislation would
allow for these questions and deploy “professionals trained in diagnosing and
preventing this kind of derangement.” California’s Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne
Feinstein proposed also letting families ask a court to temporarily prohibit
gun purchases based on a credible risk of physical harm to self and others.
All that, of course, gets stiff
opposition from the gun lobby, which calls these ideas “an affront to
Americans’ basic rights.”
The top priority, though, has to be
preservation of human life. In the last 14 years, there have been more mass
killings of the Newtown/Isla Vista/Virginia Tech sort in this country than in
the rest of the world combined. The vast majority of lives taken came via
shootings.
Which means something is amiss. Does
that mean no person in psychotherapy should have a gun? Does it mean police
should have the right to question every gun owner?
Probably not. But if mental illness is
the common denominator in mass killings from the Texas Tower to Newtown,
Columbine and Isla Vista, then it’s high time to make it much harder for the
mentally ill to acquire firearms of any kind, no matter how carefully laws
doing this must be crafted.
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Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
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