Tags
2nd amendment, 4th amendment, 5th amendment, gun control, gun rights, mental health, molon labe, property rights, tyranny
***Update, 04.11.2013:
Turns out the NY State Police targeted the wrong guy for confiscation. All just an innocent mistake, you see, that a man was unjustly flagged as mentally unfit and treated like a criminal and ordered to give up his guns; that this man was accidently picked from a list (just a guess) that he shouldn’t be on because the list shouldn’t exist. No harm, no foul, huh? This might well mean that somebody else is the “right” guy, I mean, victim. No word if he got his letter yet.
***
Via protein wisdom:
If you take anti-anxiety drugs your pistol permit can be revoked. Just as I predicted would happen.
[…]
And just so we’re clear on the implications here: if a state can revoke your pistol permit because you are on anxiety medication — which, incidentally, is a treatment, which would seem to suggest that the anxiety has been controlled — it can revoke your permit for any number of “medical” or “mental health” issues, all of which they’ll be privy to as a function of ObamaCare.
The linked story is about a legal gun owner in NY who received a notice from the state ordering him to surrender his weapons to the local police (who knew about him, and were readied to pay him a visit had he not shown up at the station), and that his gun permit was being suspended. Why? He had a short-term health issue requiring meds, a private issue that his doctor didn’t disclose to any authority. No criminal record. No violent acts. No problem with the law. Just a medical record… CRIMINAL!
Are you okay with the state rifling through your private medical records, without a warrant, in search of a reason to deprive you of your property, or for that matter, any reason whatever? Do you know what country you live in? Have you ever heard of the Constitution?
Amendment IV:Amendment V:The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Back in January, I too had a bad feeling about all that “mental health” talk, purporting in tandem with or in lieu of stricter gun control, to be a preferred primary objective of governmental introspection for many post-Newtown reactionary hysterics.
… and from Mental Health, and the Consequence of the National Crazy Registry:
Then, amongst the barrage of gun-hysteria-linked-”mental health”-hysteria, Obama puts out his 23 Executive Actions to Address Gun Violence, 01.16.13 (which is translated here):
[…]
All of this is clearly aimed at growing the list (see NICS below) of those prohibited from buying firearms (the gun-forbidden list), by way of growing the “these people are crazy” list. A neat little trick.
Break down the walls of privacy, encourage doctors to snoop and report, assure them they’ll get paid for the process, start the “dialogue”(code for propaganda), and then ultimately define crazy down. You know, lower the threshold for the honor of placement on the list.
But it’s deeper still. The bad guys don’t submit to background checks. They get their guns. Everybody knows this. So why else compile a national registry of “crazy” people? So that they can be controlled, limited, manipulated, blackmailed, and otherwise deprived of liberty, of course. If you don’t think such a database has the potential to be abused as a tool of oppression, both by government and citizen, then you are a naive child.
Consider as well, the consequence to those who are truly in need of mental health services who, upon learning of this growing national mental defective registry, might not seek help at all, so as to stay off the list. Think of that for a moment…
This.Is.Tyranny
…but hey, the architects have for themselves the appropriate appellation (D), so it must be okay.
~tdv
SubConch 
I read the article you linked carefully, since I have often found that media misreports these things or omits important details. The man’s lawyer says his doctor did not provide the information about his diagnosis, however he did not testify to that under oath. It’s his opinion. No MD would be allowed to confirm or deny such information without warrant, and we don’t know if the attorney had one since the article doesn’t say. No one would have had the diagnosis information available to them outside of the medical practice, and only the treating physician, or a referred psych specialist, are mandatory reporters. No nurse working under them would report. It’s outside “scope of practice”. They would lose their licenses. A pharmacy providing the medicines could kinda-sorta guess, but SSRI drugs are an rx for lots of conditions, and the pharmacists aren’t mandatory reporters.
The information came directly from one of the man’s treating physicians. Someone with a license to diagnose estimated that the man has a disorder rendering him at least temporarily a danger to himself or others if in possession of a gun, and reported it. It’s not within the license of his lawyer to invalidate a medical diagnosis, though he could provide additional medical experts to testify on the man’s behalf that he is not suffering from an anxiety or depressive diagnosis, or that he is cured. There’s really no way for the government (federal or state) to independently get hold of this kind of information except through a wiretap or other unlikely spy scenario. It’s all encrypted data, and there’s no magic “tell the authorities” button in the software or on the servers. It happens on purpose, through a decision to act, not by any stealth.
(In case you are wondering where I got so obsessive about these small details, I have worked in a variety of health care settings, and currently work in an Urgent Care clinic.)
Appreciate for your comments, IM. Please consider the following as general commentary rather than as directed at you, which is not my intent.
Whether or not anything nefarious was at work here with respect to protocols and state access to private medical data is secondary (but important) to the broader unconstitutional and unjust nature of the whole thing.
The fact is that the state used the man’s private medical information as a tool to deprive him of his private property, because the state disapproves of said (constitutionally protected) property. No hearing, no witnesses, no rebuttal… They sent him a freaking letter, and CC’d the local police, effectively criminalizing him.
He’s not a criminal (evidenced by the fact that he wasn’t arrested when he complied with the order), and is not to be treated as a criminal, except to the extent that a criminal might be afforded due process prior to punishment. This man is a victim, and I fear the first (known) in a long train to come.
What if the man and his family were killed in their home by an intruder the day after his weapons were confiscated, weapons that could have saved their lives? What then?
And so what if the man is suffering from anxiety or depression? So what? Does this disqualify him from equal protection under the law?
…Upon the “estimation” of someone “licensed to diagnose”, the man’s a threat if he has a gun? Isn’t this the kind of thing to be determined in a court of law? What if that licensed someone is wrong, or corrupt, or on a political crusade? Is his decision autonomous and beyond reproach? What checks and balances are in place to protect individual rights from him? And to the individual, if he’s such a threat, why not have him committed? Why not confiscate everything he owns that can be deemed a danger to himself or others, like his car, his kitchen utensils, his golf clubs, his medicine cabinet, his dog, and that bag of sugar over the stove? Why not seize his bank accounts and get him fired, so he can’t buy dangerous things? Where does it end?
“Mr. Jones, The doctor called. Give us your stuff. You can try to retrieve it later if you want, at your own expense, if you think you can.”
Just replace the word “gun” with any other property, with any other freedom or right, and the whole of this travesty would be readily exposed for what it is… assault. Let the government ban say, television, under the arbitrary headings of “mental fitness” and “security from self”, and imagine the revolt.
“There are some, who would be inclined to regard the servile pliancy of the executive, to a prevailing current, either in the community, or in the legislature, as its best recommendation. But such men entertain very crude notions, as well of the purposes for which government was instituted, as of the true means by which the public happiness may be promoted. The republican principle demands, that the deliberate sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they intrust the management of their affairs; but it does not require an unqualified complaisance to every sudden breeze of passion, or to every transient impulse which the people may receive from the arts of men, who flatter their prejudices to betray their interests. It is a just observation, that the people commonly intend the public good. This often applies to their very errors. But their good sense would despise the adulator who should pretend, that they always reason right about the means of promoting it. They know, from experience, that they sometimes err; and the wonder is, that they so seldom err as they do, beset, as they continually are, by the wiles of parasites and sycophants; by the snares of the ambitious, the avaricious, the desperate; by the artifices of men who possess their confidence more than they deserve it; and of those who seek to possess, rather than to deserve it. When occasions present themselves, in which the interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations, it is the duty of the persons whom they have appointed, to be the guardians of those interests; to withstand the temporary delusion, in order to give them time and opportunity for more cool and sedate reflection. Instances might be cited, in which a conduct of this kind has saved the people from very fatal consequences of their own mistakes, and has procured lasting monuments of their gratitude to the men who had courage and magnanimity enough to serve them at the peril of their displeasure.” ~Hamilton, Federalist No.71, par.02
Government is intended to act as a tempered bulwark against reactive, impulsive assaults on the principled foundations of our secured liberty, but rather today they advantage and stoke momentary passions as a means to upend those very foundations.