(Manassas, VA, May 8, 2007) On April 30, the Governor of Virginia signed an Executive Order requiring any ruling by a judge or magistrate which says that a person could be a “threat to himself or others” must be reported to the Virginia Crime Statistics Database and shared with the federal government’s National Instant Check System. This would mean that any such person would lose their right to purchase, own, or possess a firearm for the rest of their life (or until a court restores their rights – something that sounds reasonable, but simply never happens.)
No one would suggest that it is sensible or prudent to make it easier for mentally unstable people to acquire firearms. Arguments against increased limitations on access to firearms by the mentally ill can not help but seem – well – crazy. Unfortunately, just because something seems sensible on its face does not mean it truly is sensible and just because an argument is difficult to make does not make it wrong.
(Manassas, VA, May 8, 2007) On April 30, the Governor of Virginia signed an Executive Order requiring any ruling by a judge or magistrate which says that a person could be a “threat to himself or others” must be reported to the Virginia Crime Statistics Database and shared with the federal government’s National Instant Check System. This would mean that any such person would lose their right to purchase, own, or possess a firearm for the rest of their life (or until a court restores their rights – something that sounds reasonable, but simply never happens.)
No one would suggest that it is sensible or prudent to make it easier for mentally unstable people to acquire firearms. Arguments against increased limitations on access to firearms by the mentally ill can not help but seem – well – crazy. Unfortunately, just because something seems sensible on its face does not mean it truly is sensible and just because an argument is difficult to make does not make it wrong.
The fact that our nation was founded on principles of individual liberty makes it very difficult to force a person who might be struggling with mental issues to get help. The standard way around this bothersome liberty thing is for a judge to declare that the subject might be “a threat to himself or others.” This declaration allows the court to step in and order evaluation or treatment.
Again, this seems reasonable until you consider how low the burden of proof for such a judgment can be. Judges have tended to look at the matter as a rather minor issue; your family or friends are worried about you and you refuse to “get help”… The judge will just send you in so the doctors can take a look at you and see what’s really going on – simple, relatively painless, and rarely any immediate negative impacts.
So anyone that has undergone such an order – ever in their life – now loses their gun rights. Every veteran who was ever forced to undergo treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, every high school or college student who was taken into “protective custody” for threatening suicide, every young man who was ordered to undergo psychiatric evaluation because he enjoys getting into fights a bit too much… Anyone who has ever had a judge use the expedient term “threat to himself and others” would lose their gun rights forever.
Might such a law keep someone like the Virginia Tech murderer from legally purchasing firearms? Possibly; but it won’t stop them from buying guns illegally, or buying a couple of quarts of gasoline, or getting behind the wheel of a car… Meanwhile such a law could prohibit thousands – maybe millions – of perfectly healthy, responsible citizens from exercising one of their enumerated Constitutional rights. All in the hope of impeding that extremely rare, seriously dangerous animal from acquiring a gun as his primary implement of destruction.
Suppressing the rights of the many in hopes of interfering with the activities of the very few, is no way to run a free country.
A recent case at the University of Georgia really makes the point. A 27 year old graduate student made a comment during a meeting with a faculty member which caused that faculty member some alarm. Reports say there was no threat made, just a “troubling comment.” This faculty member’s concern led campus police to seek, and a magistrate to grant, a warrant for the young man to be committed for psychological evaluation.
Police arrived at the young man’s apartment a little after 10:00 that night. Receiving no answer to their knocking, they used a pass-key to enter the apartment. In a back bedroom officers encountered the young man who “threatened” them with a handgun. After identifying themselves and issuing repeated orders, police convinced the man to put down the gun and surrender. He has now been charged with Aggravated Assault on a Police Officer.
Whether this is a case of an involved teacher rescuing a student from himself or a hopolophobe exercising their own paranoia, has yet to be determined. What is truly troubling about this case is that based on nothing more than one person’s assertion, police were able to obtain a search warrant, have the young man declared a “threat to himself and others”, and ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation.
Under the new Virginia rules this young man would lose his gun rights forever – all on the word of one person.
That a judge or magistrate would sign an order and warrant based on the word of a single witness, is down right scary. That such an order would automatically result in the loss of all gun rights – even if the ordered evaluation finds nothing out of order – is indefensible and unacceptable.