The real danger of red flag laws...

[BobbyV]

Not really. Nothing actually happens.

What would it take for this to change in your opinion? Would the proposed red flag laws mean any actual improvement?

 

[Tanis143]

I'm about ready to delete all social media . . . I dumped Facebook back in December and haven't missed it one bit.

If I wasn't apart of several groups that use FB to get stuff done, I would. Plus its the only way I have contact with several family members.

 

[tRidiot]

What would it take for this to change in your opinion? Would the proposed red flag laws mean any actual improvement?

Not by and large. I mean, it'll help confiscate their guns, as well as those of TONS of non-violent citizens who shoot off their mouths or just LOOK at someone wrong, or look mean.

But, no, our country needs to grow some balls and admit some people just cannot live in a civilized society. That's it.

 

[ignerntbend]

But, no, our country needs to grow some balls and admit some people just cannot live in a civilized society. That's it.

What do you do when the rules get stretched? What do you do with the paranoia in this very thread? Lock 'em up. Feed em medicine. My brother in law's second cousin might turn me in and then its curtains for me.

 

[Free Trapper]

The precedence of eliminating due process has been committed. We now cease being a free country

 

[ParatusForty-Six]

Not really. Nothing actually happens. Had many people I have dealt with whom are a legitimate threat to themselves and others. They send 'em away for a few days, they go on some meds, tell the docs and evaluators what they want to hear and they get released - then they end up going off the deep end again in days to weeks. I've seen 'em get violent and threatening over and over and over and over - then end up dead at the hands of the police.

Our society is all about feel-good measures that don't work and do nothing to prevent crime or help mental illness, but doesn't have the balls to do what needs to be done - mandatory medication with monitoring or forcible commitment.

It's been said that the death of institutionalized commitment was the beginning of the true mental health emergency in the US. People who require daily medication, treatment, and attention aren't getting it from their unqualified family members who, honestly, have their own lives to live. They just aren't cut out for being constant psychiatric caregivers. So, you have people who are self-regulating the intake of required meds, aren't getting to the kind of counseling which may help them, and they end up in a cycle like you described where, eventually, they end up in front of a man with a gun looking at a man with a gun, knife, or otherwise putting innocents in harm's way in any number of ways, and they end up dead...or they get into a family member's lawfully owned guns and go shoot up a school then kill themselves. Now you've got a family who's lost a loved one, a cop who's had to take another person's life and/or a school full of dead kids, and a society struggling to make sense of something which makes no sense whatsoever.

 

[BobbyV]

If I wasn't apart of several groups that use FB to get stuff done, I would. Plus its the only way I have contact with several family members.

I definitely miss some of the gun groups . . .

If you use FB Messenger you can still message them without actually being active on FB or having a FB profile/account.

 

[Glocktogo]

Not by and large. I mean, it'll help confiscate their guns, as well as those of TONS of non-violent citizens who shoot off their mouths or just LOOK at someone wrong, or look mean.

But, no, our country needs to grow some balls and admit some people just cannot live in a civilized society. That's it.

More to the point, do you think it's because the tools aren't in place to do an involuntary commitment? Or is it because the system and it's operators currently don't have the time, resources and/or will to follow through and get a dangerous person involuntarily committed? In a couple of other threads I've pointed out that the DoJ prosecution rate for lying on a 4473 is so small as to be nonexistent (0.0008%). What good are more laws if they can't or won't use the ones they already have?

What do you do when the rules get stretched? What do you do with the paranoia in this very thread? Lock 'em up. Feed em medicine. My brother in law's second cousin might turn me in and then its curtains for me.

Is it really paranoia? Or is it a legitimate concern because history has proven it to be so? I get that any one individual has a pretty small chance of being wrongfully violated by these proposals, but is it a smaller or larger chance than 0.0008%?

 

[tRidiot]

More to the point, do you think it's because the tools aren't in place to do an involuntary commitment? Or is it because the system and it's operators currently don't have the time, resources and/or will to follow through and get a dangerous person involuntarily committed? In a couple of other threads I've pointed out that the DoJ prosecution rate for lying on a 4473 is so small as to be nonexistent (0.0008%). What good are more laws if they can't or won't use the ones they already have?



Is it really paranoia? Or is it a legitimate concern because history has proven it to be so? I get that any one individual has a pretty small chance of being wrongfully violated by these proposals, but is it a smaller or larger chance than 0.0008%?

I'm not sure how to answer that. I honestly don't know what laws and protocols are in place and may not be being followed, all I know is I have documented the danger to the public and the individual out the wazoo and turned them over to Law Enforcement and shared my concerns with them as well as informed them I was documenting such, only to have the individual turn back up in my ER in just a few days with the same problems all over again. I know sometimes Law Enforcement would lock them up overnight and release them the next day, sometimes send them off for EOD and Psych eval, whatever - eventually DID end up dead at the end of a police bullet in at least one case.

 

[Glocktogo]

I'm not sure how to answer that. I honestly don't know what laws and protocols are in place and may not be being followed, all I know is I have documented the danger to the public and the individual out the wazoo and turned them over to Law Enforcement and shared my concerns with them as well as informed them I was documenting such, only to have the individual turn back up in my ER in just a few days with the same problems all over again. I know sometimes Law Enforcement would lock them up overnight and release them the next day, sometimes send them off for EOD and Psych eval, whatever - eventually DID end up dead at the end of a police bullet in at least one case.

Well that sucks and whether a flaw of the system or application, really doesn't make much difference at that point. I think we overly burden law enforcement and in some cases, medical professionals with mental health counseling and treatment. There should be more resources available to those who suffer.