David Katz (Madden Shooter) could buy guns despite mental health issues - Polidicks

Federal law requires gun buyers to disclose whether they have ever been involuntarily committed to a mental institution. Maryland law prevents someone from passing a background check to buy guns if they were either involuntarily committed for any period of time or voluntarily admitted to a psychiatric facility for at least 30 consecutive days. Katz’s two known hospitalizations as an adolescent did not reach that threshold. “It appears that these disqualifications did not apply to David Katz,” said Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. In recent weeks, Katz legally purchased the two handguns he carried from a gun store in Baltimore, the sheriff said. Jacksonville eSports shooter David Katz was twice hospitalized f..

30 days? Jesus Being voluntarily institutionalized for a week should stop you getting a gun until you've passed more psych evals imo.

If the documentation for that even gets filed correctly and then the background check gets done properly. Reminder that the Sutherland Springs Church shooter was able to legally buy an AR-15 variant and kill 27 people with it because the Air Force forgot to add his court martial to the national database used in background checks and the Charleston Church shooter was able to legally buy the handgun he used to kill 9 people because of bureaucratic fuckups that caused his past crimes to not show up for the background check. The current gun control system in the US has more holes than goddamn Swiss cheese and is the absolute first thing that needs reform.

Uh oh, now you've gone and done it. Here they come!

Hey, I'm not calling for bans or advances or anything, just fixing what's already there so it fucking works. I think most gun owners would agree with that.

Before we get into the same discussion that sounds like a broken record every damn thread for 20 pages, it sure sounds like the guy was crazy, but he did not naturally become like that. Seems like he was pretty badly neglected by his family. Perhaps the tragedy could have been prevented and he would not even think of doing it if he was not driven into a corner, what could stop him from becoming like that in the first place? America has to get to the very root of their problems if they want to fix them for good. Although worth consideration, gun control and mental health are only band-aid solutions, only suppressing the effects of the system, not the cause.

I agree, and I think that's better than a simple black and white rule, as I have been voluntarily committed for over 30 days for depression, but have never been a violent person. I think adding in a psych eval is prudent to make things fairer. In fact, I think somebody who has been committed for any length of time should need to pass a psych eval before getting a gun.

Just out of curiosity, how do some Americans reconcile the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms, with preventing gun sales to Americans who have mental health issues? It’s a clear-cut case to prevent someone under the age of 18 from buying a gun, because they are a minor who doesn’t yet have the full rights and responsibilities of citizenship. And it’s also clear-cut to prevent someone with a felony from buying a gun, as they disregarded their rights upon being convicted for a serious crime. But how do you deal with mental illness? There are many different forms of mental illness, and even particular disorders can have a wide spectrum. Most people already have, or eventually will have, some form of mental illness. Where do you sensibly draw the line on who can and can’t have a gun, without being too arbitrary and without infringing on constitutional rights? This is obviously a problem for any country which has licencing requirements for gun ownership. But virtually no other country offers its citizens a constitutional right to bear arms. Is there even a sensible middle-ground between guaranteeing the right of anyone to buy a gun, regardless of mental illness, or treating guns as a restricted privilege only available to those few people who are completely sound of mind?

there are some who don't reconcile it at all. i vividly remember several years ago numerous people on this forum argued that it would be unconstitutional for a legally blind man to be barred from owning guns - not just because shooting guns is fun, which is a fair argument - but because being blind and thus vulnerable, he would particularly need a gun for self-defense.

If they are prone to violence, they should not be allowed to own a gun. That's a pretty clear cut case. If they are prone to self-harm or suicidal thoughts, they should not own a gun until they get the help they need and no longer show such symptoms. You could even update the national database by assigning a flag to each different type of hospitalization, to designate whether someone was hospitalized for a condition but is fit to own a gun, or if they are not fit. But that would probably require some overhaul of how we handle mental health.

if there's loopholes in our system then its working as intended by the lobbyists that are constantly working to expand gun rights.

I wonder if this is at all related to that story a while back about guns being approved without any checks for a year because an employee forgot their password.

What the fuck? I have been told that if I ever came in voluntarily, I'd be on lockdown from owning or purchasing firearms, at least till I cleared a medical screening and go a doctor's note telling the judges I was okay.

So you didn't?

Voluntary 48. I was told that if I ever came on a medical emergency, I'd be disallowed from owning firearms, until I passed a medical evaluation.

So you thought that owning Guns was more important than possibly getting help for mental illness? As someone who's had severe Mental Health issues I'm struggling to understand the logic here. Or am I misreading this?

Part of the issue with the system is that once youre barred from gun ownership, its really tough to get back into the system legally. It should be tough but even a clean bill of health isn't always enough. This is why you see pro-gun folks rally so hard against universal background checks. Even getting a no-fly-list strike removed from your record is tough, even if its on there for non-violent reasons. The current gun control system the US uses dates back to the 30s and the processes it uses hasn't really seen that many modern updates. The system is really broken and needs fixing, but one side wants to ban everything outright instead of mending it, and the other side wants to sit on their hands. Shits all fucked up and nobody on capital hill knows what to do. The answer is clear but nobody wants to believe it or spend the money to fix it.

Nope he's not the only one, knew a Canadian who did the same thing.

In the case of, for example, a clinically depressed person who was institutionalized voluntarily, it should be "really tough" to get back into the system legally. And that's one of the less unpredictable mental conditions, bipolar disorder and the like should be even more difficult. Mental conditions can't always be stamped and approved with just a 'clean bill of health'. The prevalence of relapse in patients with psychotic disorders, for example, is around 24%, and that the recurrence rate for depression can be 85% in a decade. I'd rather not play with those odds imo.

taking away what could be someone's most precious hobby while they are depressed doesn't seem like a good thing to do

Misreading. I was just told that would be the case if it ever occurred.

Like I said, it should be tough. But being institutionalized, regardless of the condition or if it was voluntary, makes it very hard to get that scrubbed from your record. I realize mental illnesses are not black and white issues that can just be "solved" in all cases, but neither should the considerations for being barred from rights be black and white either. This also applies to the no-fly-list thing. For example, Burnie Burns from Rooster Teeth was placed on a no fly list because he had a sudden influx of cash being deposited into his bank account from thousands of different transactions. All of those transactions were from DVD sales, but because he couldn't prove where every transaction came from he got stuck on a no-fly-list for years. Arbitrary reasons like that can get anyone stuck on that list. Thats my point. The arbitrary distinction to disallow ownership is too vague and too expansive. It desperately needs an overhaul.

Easy. We already ban violent criminals and drug abusers from being able to own firearms, for much the same reasons - because these kinds of people are not responsible enough to own a firearm and be safe with it, whether it be hurting themselves or others. This has already been argued out by the courts and is a precedent, so the courts agree that it's constitutional and thus it's constitutional, because that's how the government works.

As we all know there was absolutely no form of legislative change that could have prevented this, this is just inevitable and we should instead turn out sights to...idk, making automated defense systems?

And giving them their hobby when a random depressive episode could end in their, or other peoples' deaths seems like an even worse thing to do.

Tbh, I don't trust that barring "mentally ill" from buying or owning guns is really going to achieve much tbh?

There is, just nobody is interested. Republicans flat out don't care, and Democrats only care about reducing the number of guns, criminalizing thousands of innocent people in the process.

The problem with the mental health barrings, is that it's discriminatory and also creates a major problem where most people would be afraid of simply going into mental health checkups. Getting a label means you become a 2nd class citizen in your own country. You can probably imagine why so many people recommend just "toughing it up" because actually opening up is far more likely to shut doors then open them up. This is why their are so many questions regarding these types of things. It's not just a question that effects the one or two loonies you know, it's something which effects millions of people that are diagnosed, and several other millions that have yet to be diagnosed.

On this topic I would like to elaborate. For me firearms are a fairly intregal part of my life; it is my line of work, it is my expertise. If I were to be forcefully institutionalized that is fine in my book, as due process would have to run it's course before I would lose my right (temporarily or otherwise) to possess firearms. However, to have them taken away from me for voluntarily committing myself is unacceptable. Why should I have to give up my livelyhood, if even temporarily, because I went to seek help? Why should I lose my rights for voluntarily trying to better myself and get better? Now if I were to voluntarily seek help and the doctors got the courts involved to forcefully institutionalize me after that's a different story, but to have an unelected indevidual strip me of my rights without due process, legal recourse, or at the very least a second opinion is entirely out of the question. The type of precedent that would set would be horrifying if applied to any other right. In the case of this gentleman there is two things at work beyond what I just stated. The first was that both cases of his voluntary commitment happened to what I read prior to his 18th birthday, which means that those would have been off the record anyway. The second for have to deal with how the states report such issues, which is a huge problem with the current background check system. Right now the states are required to submit such information to the FBI, but as there is no real recourse in the event that they do not, or like in the above stated cases clerical errors led to them not being submitted, then all the backround checks in the world would not have caught them. Unfuck what we've got first, then we can talk about if there needs to be more.

Nice driveby shitpost but no, NICS really should be patched up and nobody benefits from it not working correctly.