Tough New York Gun Law May Hold Unintended Consequences
Mental health experts say a new tougher New York state gun control law might interfere with treatment of potentially dangerous people and even discourage them from seeking help.
The law would require therapists, doctors, nurses and social workers to tell government authorities if they believe a patient is likely to harm himself or others. That could lead to revoking the patient's gun permit and seizing any guns. (source)
New laws tend to have unintended consequences worse than the conditions or situations they are intended to remedy. The hysteria over the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre has such strange bedfellows as the NRA and some of the most liberal Democrats calling for psychological or psychiatric evaluations of potential gun owners.
Question: Does the state have enough of an interest to require a breach of the privacy normally holding between a patient and his clinician making the state an invisible presence in the conference room?
Question: Might more mayhem be prevented by letting clinicians do their job rather than imposing requirements on them.?
Question: Might imposing a reporting requirement on clinicians expose them to homicidal danger once the client realizes that his counselor has breached the shell of confidentiality holding between them?
Question: Given the ambiguities holding between what clients talk about and what they might actually do might a reporting requirement expose clinicians to needless criminal and civil sanctions if their best guess turns out to be wrong and a client they thought safe did something horrendous? The point is, it's a lot easier to judge how dangerous a patient was in retrospect and hold a clinician responsible.
Tags: control, gun, psychiatry, psycology
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Strega on -
In Vermont, pretty much anyone can buy and carry a gun, concealed or otherwise, provided they are over the age of 16 - no licence, no background checks - see here.
It is one of the most laid back states regarding guns.
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Permalink Reply by SteveInCO on -
It also has a very low murder rate, comparable to what the UK claims.
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Permalink Reply by Strega on
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Yes it also has an extremely low religious content - and was the first state to introduce same-sex marriage - before even the UK.
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Permalink Reply by Kris Feenstra on -
I'm pretty sure it's Ben and Jerry's that keep the state in check.
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Permalink Reply by SteveInCO on
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So what, the major problem causer is religion, not guns? Say it ain't so!! :D
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Permalink Reply by Unseen on -
As this article reveals, murder statistics appear sensitive to all kinds of things such as poverty, unemployment rates, police training and tactics, trauma center preparedness, urban gentrification, and so on, including gun laws. Notably, Chicago—a city that bears comparison with New York City—has draconian drug laws and a murder rate which is out of control. At least with tobacco smoking, we can refer to statistics even if we can't demonstrate the causal nexus with the certainty of a chemical reaction. Statistics just seem to increase the mystery when it comes to murder rates. They confuse and confound.
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Permalink Reply by Warren E Jappe on -
Not to mention that patients that would otherwise seek help decide not to and be completely on the loose to do whatever they might?
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Permalink Reply by John Siqueiros on -
Well, I don't get the newspaper article.
The new law in New York seems to be similar to what California psychiatrists and therapists have had to do since the mid-1970s, from the Tarasoff decision.
Why don't these so-called experts in New York just send an email to their colleagues in California to find out what the new law might do?
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Permalink Reply by Unseen on
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They might hear that California has a higher rate of crime. Of course, New York and California are different in many ways having little to do with psychiatrists.
As always, when it comes to human affairs causality is hard to pin down.
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Permalink Reply by Karl Mugele on -
I'm British and live in the UK. I'm not trying to tell people in the US what to think or how to run their country but hey. If you suspected, in any way that someone you knew were mentally unstable, would you hand them a kitchen knife after an argument? I effing wouldn't.
At a push, on an unlucky day for my community, I could stab maybe as many as 5 to 10 people with a kitchen knife before being wrestled by a hero or shot or captured by police. Give me a gun and I could kill 10s of people easily, given the ammo. The seriousness of giving someone a gun license should be treated really seriously...in my view...but I realise some people view it as an unretractable right. Some Americans told me it should only be allowed "as part of a militia" but that some misconstrue the constitution. This is not something I can really comment on but the risk of dishing out firearms like water pistols seems to me too high.
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Permalink Reply by Unseen on
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Would I? Probably not. However, many people here would argue that you can't take the rights of a citizen away based on a hunch about what they might do.
The words we use for the 2nd Amendment are that "it's a Constitutional right," which it is. That is what makes it intractable as you put it. Revoking or modifying it is difficult bordering on impossible, especially with anti-gun people clamoring, which makes the pro-gun people dig in. There are two ways to do it but both of them depend on amassing a super-majority. In other words, it takes more than just a simple majority of 50%+ to do it.
In a nutshell:
Both Houses of Congress must propose the amendment with a two-thirds vote. This is how all current amendments have been offered.
Two-thirds of the State legislatures must call on Congress to hold a Constitutional
It will be a long time before enough critical mass is built up to succeed in changing the 2nd Amendment.
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Permalink Reply by Karl Mugele on
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...but even with people with a history of mental illness...seems mental to me.
Can they be banned at state level more easily? Strega was saying his state is very easy with guns which implies other states are harsher.
...not sure I'll come to the US with these risks...sounds a bit dangerous to me...I'll go to Israel or Afghanistan instead - seems safer
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