Poll: Mentally incompetent citizens have a right to arms.

Arms for the mentally incompetent?

  • Yup. The Constitution says ALL men. No choice.

    Votes: 29 24.4%

  • Nope. The Framers weren't being quite that rigid.

    Votes: 90 75.6%
  • Total voters
    119
Yup the framers would give you a gun!!!!

While I might disagree with giving the incompetent/mentally challenged/crazy folks... a fiream - one must remember that in the 1780's a gun was quite a different thing! For example , when deTocqueville visited America he was told in Alabama that it was difficult to get a man convicted of murder, because in just about every case the defendent would claim 'self-defense'.
Back then - the defense of one's 'honor' was considered 'self-defense'. Back then you could have a 'duel'. While I might disagree, I think the 'founders' - who by the way often hated each other - would probably say that even a crazy man ought to have the right to defend himself! Yep...and in frontier America...it might be deemed cruel not to let a poor soul have a gun to at least put meat on his table! (it was a different culture and a different landscape) The other problem - is that back then - it was hard to shoot up a place with a musket, and a drive-by shooting was very slow and clumsy.
There was no such thing as auto or semi-auto...and the definition of 'mentally ill' was a bit crude. I'll give a historical example ie. Boston Corbet - the crazy fellow who shot John Wilkes Booth - was known to hear voices and disobey orders before the Union Army issued him a rifle! Boston Corbet had even castrated himself prior to joining the Union Army - but the Union Army still put him in uniform and gave him a rifle. Years after the War - even though he was known to be nuts - a state legislature made him a kind of honorary sgt.of arms...and not until he one day tried to hold the entire legislature hostage at gunpoint(he claimed god told him to do it and to change the law) was he removed from his gun toting position of authority.
I don't think such folks should be given firearms...but I also don't think the founders meant to keep them from having fireams. It gets tricky ie. Alexander Hamilton - if he had his fascist way - would have only wanted 'men of property to vote' and wanted the presidency to be a lifetime term.
He might very well have wanted only certain authorities to have firearms...but it's a moot point since he was killed in a duel... Yawning...
Remember the first successful 'not guilty by reason of insanity defense' was the case of Congressman Dan Sickles shooting his wife's alleged paramour
in front of the White House in broad daylight. :confused:
 
Mentally incompetent

The mentally incompetent have the same fundamental, inalienable rights as the rest of us. Period. The whole discussion is being framed in the wrong terms. We are using the wrong terms when we discuss whether or not they have a right to firearms. They HAVE the RIGHT.

What we should be using as the framework for discussion is whether their exercise of that right should be denied or not.

The long standing principle is that persons deemed a danger to themselves or others are denied the exercise of their rights. This is legally done, only through due process. Liberty, property, and even life itself can be denied through due process of law.

So, even though the mentally incompetent have a right to firearms, we do not allow them to exercise that right, in the interests of public safety.

Note that this only applies to those people who are judged, in the eyes of the law, as mentally incompetent. People who may not be competent, but have not been judged as such, must be allowed to exercise their rights, if they so choose.

The essence of inalienable rights is that they CANNOT be revoked. Not by man, not by government. They can be denied, by an entity stronger than the individual (govt), but they cannot be revoked. That we do not use these terms in common discussion, is, I feel, an error.

When a person is killed, their right to life is not revoked, it is denied.

There are valid justifications for denial of inalienable rights. They are few, and specific. Due process is the method used to ensure that inalienable rights are only denied with valid justification. This is what we refer to as "justice".

Sometimes it works better than others....
 
The key to the whole thing is "due process".
If somebody goes before a judge and says "your honor, this guy is crazier than a sack full of three-eared bunnies" and the judge agrees, that's due process.
A legislator, OTOH, who decrees that Americans in general are too irresponsible to have access to military hardware is not due process.
 
If my State thinks someone is dangerous, the US has no business telling us that we cannot infringe on his RKBA. The Second Amendment has nothing to do with such matters, it only limits the US. Of course, a State cannot disarm everyone ("the people")because that would collide with the US power to call forth the militia. But if a State disarms the mentally incompetent, they are certainly within their rights to do so.
 
I think the term mentally incompetent is much too broad and open. After all, what does it really mean? It's a relative term. Heck, I am mentally incompetent among neurosurgeons in a surgical suite. The term mentally incompetent has no basis in science, only in opinion, and therefore could be applied to anyone given the proper criteria for judgement.

Should a stage 1 Alzhiemer's diagnosis strip one of their RTKBA rights?
Should a dementia diagnosis? Dementia is a catch all phrase that medically states Granny ain't acting right anymore. There are as many forms of dementia as there are heart disease. When you consider CP or Parkinsons, you are not even considering cognitive processes any longer.

If we use a person's actions as an indicator of future actions, then many, many people would be denied the RTKBA. What woman or man has never acted irrationally? I know I have had my moments in the past.

Then there is the mentally retarded population. I object to labeling these people incompetent. They may not be working for NASA, but a man who holds a job bussing tables at a pizza parlor for six to ten years can hardly be called incompetent.

Saying a man or woman is a danger to themselves, or others is an inherently chancy prospect. I have made that determination with people, and have sought PEC orders or CEC orders when needed. My judgement, however, is colored by my experience, and in the end, these people are being committed based on my judgement. I have been wrong about things in the past. Being wrong about whether a person should retain their freedom and rights to self protection and self determination is huge. The impact on that person's life can be devastating. Being wrong in the other direction can be equally devastating.

I believe in the end, we need better terminology. Before we strip away anyone's right to self defense in the name of societal protection, we need better defined standards and criteria. We need scientific standards and criteria that cannot be abused by those who would abuse them, or applied less than accurately by those who try to do their best with what they have to work with.
 
This isnt all that hard.....

you have on one hand individual rights and on the other hand public safety. These are balanced out everyday in the Supreme Court and other appeals courts. One example is the current debate on 4thA rights as concerned with the NSA's ability to eavesdrop without a warrant, with presidential authorization. Individual rights vs public safety.

Just because you have individual rights does not mean you can use those rights to endanger yourself or other persons. By endangering other persons you are depriving them of thier right to life, the pursuit of happiness, mom's apple pie and all the other goodies we are guaranteed by the BoR. You can endanger them by criminal actions or mental incomptence which has been adjudicated as being a danger to yourself or others. As long as you have been given some kind of "due process" your rights can be removed because you are depriving other people of thier rights and have been declared a threat against public safety through "due process"
 
Alcohol Automobiles Knives Gasoline...

Lots of potentially DANGEROUS items can be purchased by SO-CALLED MENTALLY INCOMPETENT people. On the other hand, just because someone CAN DO SOMETHING ... doesn't of course mean that they should be encouraged to do so. Maybe my 98 yr.old grandpa shouldn't purchase a new corvette...and maybe my mentally challenged cousin...is not the person to encourage to buy a gallon of whisky... Yet, they have the right to do so!:cool:
 
If a person is allowed to vote, they should retain RKBA.

If by mechanism of due process, a person is adjudicated in a manner prescribed by law to no longer be compentent to vote, then it would be reasonable to have their RKBA revoked as well.

Authority and power should not be severed. Voting is the citizen's authority in government. RKBA is the citizen's power.

Mental incompetence in the voting booth is more dangerous and more destructive than mental incompetence with a firearm. In the long run, many more people will suffer from mental incompetence in the voting booth.

Michael Courtney
 
There are many mentally challenged persons who own firearms....but, they do not want you to own any...they are called Democrats.....IMHO
 
Mayor Bloomberg is holding an anti gun forum in NYC and is a Republican, Rudy is a Republican too...

Mitt Romney who is a Republican who has thrown his hat in the presidential contest is anti-gun.....

So its just not the Democrats anymore.......
 
Lots of potentially DANGEROUS items can be purchased by SO-CALLED MENTALLY INCOMPETENT people.
Click to expand...

unless they have been "adjudicated" and declared mentally incompetent through "due process"...then no firearms
 
Seems to me when your right to vote is restored, Your right to gun ownership is equally restored. Did Cheney vote last term? Good night all.
 
The answer is yes. Those who are mentally incompetant have every right that any of us has--though those rights have been infringed by that good ol' tyranny-by-majority known as "democracy."

They should have every freedom anyone else has, with the same responsibilities. If they prove violent, they face punishment, no different than anyone else.

To argue that there are some sort of "hidden limitations" in the Bill of Rights that can be interpreted to fit whatever the majority of people thinks is "reasonable" is absurd. Perhaps tomorrow the majority could simply decide that anyone who likes guns is mentally incompetant?

When you must err, err on the side of liberty. To accept restrictions of liberty for others is to invite those restrictions to spread to yourself. Can anyone not see this?
 
They should have every freedom anyone else has, with the same responsibilities. If they prove violent, they face punishment, no different than anyone else.
Click to expand...
That is the catch. What if you can't really punish them for their crimes? What is the point in punishing someone who doesn't know the difference between jail and the outside world? What is the point of executing a murderer who doesn't have a clue. (I'm reminded here of the story about that mentally retarded man whose execution Governor Clinton failed to stay. He had his last meal and then didn't eat his dessert. The guard asked him why and he said he was full and would have it after he got back from the execution.)
 
What is the point of executing a murderer who doesn't have a clue?
Click to expand...
What is the point of calling Orkin when you have roaches? To get rid of them, of course. This is not about punishment, rehabilitation, redemption, or deterrence. It is about making society safe for law abiding people. The mentally incompetent commit crimes every bit as harmful and permanent as the mentally competent. The punishment should fit the crime, not the criminal.
 
Xavier,

I don't think everyone shares your view that killing people is a good way of tiddying up. You seem to favor expedience over justice or morality. That might make some sort of sense on a desert island, but we no longer need to execute unwanted people to remove them from the general population.

I doubt you intended it, but your sentiment is very similar to the idea of killing problematic groups of people or sterilizing the handicapped. All are based on the idea that individual life and liberty can and should be sacrificed for societal health.

The American ideal of individual rights implies that justice and punishment have to reflect the crime and criminal, NOT society's needs and wants.
 
Some of the folks who are truly mentally competent do not have a mental compass as to what is right or wrong. What does punishment mean to them? Execution would serve no purpose or justice.

Making society safe..... that means that we should also get rid of firearms too, isnt that the battle cry of the gun grabbers. You will never have freedom and 100% personal safety. Freedom isnt free

I was reminded of that Tuesday when we drove past the National Cemetary at Ft. Sam Houston and saw the rows and rows of crosses. Those men realized that sometimes the cost of liberty and justice for all is the sacrifice of safety.
 
Handy,

I simply advocate equal rights and equal responsibilities for all people. Along with those equal rights and responsibilities come equal consequences.

When a person commits murder, the killer's low IQ does not make the victim any less dead, or the murder any more tolerable. A low IQ offers the surviving family little solace in their grief. A low IQ does not justify a person's actions. There are many, many people with substandard IQs and/or mental illness that do not rape and kill. To use a low IQ or mental illness as an excuse for these horrendous crimes is an affront to the very people of diminished capacity that you are trying to protect.

Justice should apply to all people equally, without free passes being given for insanity, low IQ, race, religion, or any other factor a defense attorney can use to sway a jury. Otherwise it cannot be called justice.

Incidentally, I also advocate institutionalizing the mentally ill who are out of touch with reality, and having the mentally retarded in a structured environment such as group homes. If this were done instead of allowing them to live under freeway overpasses and bus terminals, then the issue you originally posted would not be an issue. Obviously I do not advocate the possession of firearms by people who are presently institutionalized. Basically, I believe if we can trust them to care for themselves responsibly without oversight, then we must trust them to own firearms.
 
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