One more campus shooting

[Outlaw]

Go to the RMGO website and check out the 'Gun Free Zone' spoof. It says a lot

[DDMac]

A person's medical information, including mental health issues, is ferociously guarded by State and Federal privacy laws. Doctors get sued and unemployed by discussing anything about a patient. Doctor-patient information is priveleged and cannot be divulged without patient consent. Unless that protection of medical privacy is sacrificed by everyone, nuts will continue to pass computer background checks. Not an easy problem to solve.    Mac.

[tombogan03884]

NICS improvement is supposed to fix all that. Yeah, right, Let every one be armed, and after a few more wackos get killed, without their names going on the news, this type of thing will lose it's attraction for those sort of "people".

[OlGyrene]

DDMack, you're exactly right about the medical privacy issue. Personally, I don't understand what's behind
this privacy need. Try to get a life insurance policy for $100K and see how much privacy you have.

I have hypertension and I really don't care who knows it. But it's not something that will cause me to go bonkers
and create mayhem in a public place. The bottom line is that people who are emotionally and mentally
off balance are murdering their fellow citizens. But I'm not saying that physicians need to blow the whistle on
everyone in their care who is on Prozac.

The people who really know what's going on with someone are those who work with, go to school with, or are family/friends of the person who is at the tipping point. They need to let someone know that there is a clear and present danger.

Privacy legislation is yet another example of good intentions coming face-to-face with unintended consequences. In summary, I can't accept that my family, my friends, or I should die for someone else's privacy. Where is the privacy amendment to the Constitution?

[tombogan03884]

4th amendment, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,

[Sponsor]

[DDMac]

Tom nailed it.

I was in a police department parking lot a few years ago when a guy stepped out onto the balcony of a transient housing "hotel" across the street and opened fire at us with a 12 gauge. Birdshot, so no real damage. He was receiving signals from the "transmitters hidden in the street lights" directing him to shoot at police cars. He withdrew into his room and surrendered after being HEAVILY gassed. He was a VA patient who went off his meds. Bought the shotgun at a pawn shop 4 hours earlier. His medical records were not accessible for use in prosecuting him for falsifying the ATF F 4473, and his family's tearful testimony about his mental problems was hearsay, thus inadmissible.
He was Federally charged with a small amount of drugs he had, found not guilty by reason of insanity, involuntarily committed to the VA hospital, and now has a NICS "find-able" and reliable criminal record and bar against any FFL sale to him when he is found sane and released.

It should not be that hard to stop crazies from patronizing the local gun shop. Perhaps the new law will actually help, but Doctors will do what their State licensing boards advise, regardless of Federal law.  Mac.

[OlGyrene]

Tombogan03884 -

I guess my problem is with the uneveness in the application of the 4th Amendment. It seems to be an amendment that allows the government to shape it in anyway it sees fit, depending on the need at the moment. I really believe that some of the people behind using the 4th as the basis for this specious privacy dictum actually have something to hide. Please note that I say some, not all.

In the issue we're discussing, the right to privacy is being mixed in with a big dose of political correctness which is getting a lot of innocent people killed. Are we to consider those people as merely collateral damage in the struggle for an egalitarian society delivered to us through the tender mercies of political correctness?

We don't need to be hamfisted about this, but we need to identify and act on those situations when a person clearly
is a danger to those around him, and I contend again, that this is usually not a secret nor a surprise to those who know him.

[Steyrwaytoheaven]

I am not even suprised anymore at how intellectually lazy America has become. If it were at any time suggested that all automobiles be eliminated because of the harmful or malicious actions of drunk drivers, the emotionally unstable, or the insane; Americans would riot! Yet, after each and every criminally malicious act perpetuated with a firearm there are those who persecute the weapon itself and not the miscreant using it. Nor do they attack any of the conditions which may have nurtured and harbored the perpetrator, molding and allowing him/her to commit the atrocity. Why? The answer is too complex. It is easier to picket with a sign that has a gun with an international "no" symbol than it is to find a sign big enough to detail all the causes such as inadequate mental health care, an ultra-violent media system including music, video games, and movies, a breakdown in our collective moral fabric, or even such things as overpopulation, poverty, and stress. The list goes on but who has time to hear it? Who wants a cure and not just a bandaid? America bows its head and kicks a stone.

[tombogan03884]

Tombogan03884 -

I guess my problem is with the uneveness in the application of the 4th Amendment. It seems to be an amendment that allows the government to shape it in anyway it sees fit, depending on the need at the moment. I really believe that some of the people behind using the 4th as the basis for this specious privacy dictum actually have something to hide. Please note that I say some, not all.

Yes, They are crazy and should not own guns

Tombogan03884 -

In the issue we're discussing, the right to privacy is being mixed in with a big dose of political correctness which is getting a lot of innocent people killed. Are we to consider those people as merely collateral damage in the struggle for an egalitarian society delivered to us through the tender mercies of political correctness?

Seriously,  If concealed carry were universally available to potential victims, and the media did not give them the notoriety they seek , the number of "Collateral damage " deaths would PROBABLY drop significantly as these flakes were killed in anonymity while taking far fewer innocent lives.
As I said in my earlier post, Improved NCICS is supposed to help with this by making involuntary commitment info , and judgments of incompetence available to the system, however that still leaves those who are "undiagnosed". Do we make every gun dealer take a psychology course? Historically medical information has never been "private" look at the case of Typhoid Mary in NY, this also shows that there have always been a certain number of wacko's roaming the world, John Wesley Hardin was considered a Homicidal Maniac to name just one example. Maybe the answer IS in my previous paragraph, don't give them the fame they want and allow their intended victims the opportunity to shoot them down like the rabid animals they are. Semper Fi

[tombogan03884]

I am not even suprised anymore at how intellectually lazy America has become. If it were at any time suggested that all automobiles be eliminated because of the harmful or malicious actions of drunk drivers, the emotionally unstable, or the insane; Americans would riot! Yet, after each and every criminally malicious act perpetuated with a firearm there are those who persecute the weapon itself and not the miscreant using it. Nor do they attack any of the conditions which may have nurtured and harbored the perpetrator, molding and allowing him/her to commit the atrocity. Why? The answer is too complex. It is easier to picket with a sign that has a gun with an international "no" symbol than it is to find a sign big enough to detail all the causes such as inadequate mental health care, an ultra-violent media system including music, video games, and movies, a breakdown in our collective moral fabric, or even such things as overpopulation, poverty, and stress. The list goes on but who has time to hear it? Who wants a cure and not just a bandaid? America bows its head and kicks a stone.

I agree with some of what you say but DO NOT blame violent Mada, there are few books that contain more violence than the Bible, blame instead the mentality of "no personal responsibility" that allows people to shift blame for THEIR actions to inanimate objects like "guns" or rap music, or video games. If people are forced to take responsibility for their actions they will either act more responsibly or they will be removed from society.

I LOVE Ie spell, I forget who posted the link but it's a godsend !