Those who are unfit?

Well, I wasn't trying to go into specifics, but I guess I can.

Take PTSD, as mentioned by the above poster. How about paranoid schizophrenia? Major depressive disorder accompanied with talk and thoughts of suicide and bodily harm.

Any number of things, really.

Here's how I look at it. In college, I roomed next to a guy we all called Bi-polar Paul (I know, horrible of us, but true). Now, Bi-polar Paul one day picked the lock of my dorm room to come offer me fried pancakes (we had no kitchen) while intermittently telling me how he used to play farm-league baseball with Bette Midler. Bi-polar Paul had a gun, and he frequently could be found after college sitting on his couch staring down the unloaded barrel with the gun point right at his eye.

I don't know about you, but I'm just not all that comfortable with someone like that living next to me with a gun! That's been years, but yikes!
 
Take PTSD, as mentioned by the above poster. How about paranoid schizophrenia? Major depressive disorder accompanied with talk and thoughts of suicide and bodily harm.
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Since we have professionals who can address those issues, I'll leave it to them; but it strikes me that you can have a wide variety of paranoid schizophrenics, PTSD-sufferers, and major depressive disorders. Some will be safe with a firearm and some will not. Rather than paint with a broad brush and restrict everyone, I think the current system of taking someone who has a problem before a judge and having a court hearing with counsel present before we start stripping them of their rights sounds like a good idea.

I don't know about you, but I'm just not all that comfortable with someone like that living next to me with a gun!
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I don't know about you; but I'm just not all that comfortable with the way some people abuse their freedom of speech by making arguments based on vague anecdotes and telling me how they feel. Luckily for those people, my level of comfort with their exercise of a protected right is not the test for whether or not they get to use that right - as it should be.

But let's get down to brass tacks and assume that is not the case for you and your level of comfort can be translated directly into legislation. What exactly do you propose should be done about Bi-Polar Paul? If his dormmates are uncomfortable with him having a gun, should that be sufficient for him to lose his Second Amendment rights? And if not, then what would be sufficient in your eyes?

As an aside, what college did you attend where they allowed firearms in the dorms? I live in a fairly gun-friendly state and went to undergrad so long ago that attitudes about firearms were significantly different than today and even then, firearms in the dorms were a big no-no.
 
How many permitted CCW'er commit crimes?

What is the percentage of gun crime perpertrated by those without a prior criminal record?
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Those numbers are microscopically low. If folks are screened according to their actual history, It's a very good predictor of future behavior. For example, I'm a 49 year old man with no criminal record or record of mental illness. The chances against someone like me me 'snapping' are quite bankable. Fast forward 40 years, if I'm still around, a little more scrutiny of my risk factor may be in order.

Just some thoughts. I know that requiring passing a test to exercise a right is inherently problematic and fraught with controversy.

On it's face, I am not opposed to a very basic competency test for firearms possession. But I don't want the government doing the testing. Let the NRA or have some trained volunteers (think voting poll workers) administer a very basic, fair, standardized test.

I think one should be able to demonstrate the ability to load, unload, keep the thing pointed in a safe direction, and keep the booger hook off the bang switch until ready to fire. Also any inability to engage in basic conversation in one's native language, barring any purely verbal disability, ought to warrant a closer look.

I welcome others thoughts on this.
 
The field of mentally incompetent for denial of guns is too subjective and actually unknown to ever make some kind of qualification test anything other than a witchhunt except in those extreme cases where family or friends actually decide to intervene. I think I saw where 1 out of 5 Americans are using some kind of mood altering drug, for lack of a better term, for some form of mental stress or whatever. Do all of these need to be restricted?

I read a great article recently on the difference between a psychopath and a sociopath and when you get down to it the differences and similarities are truly scary. Seldom is either one known or diagnosed until they make the news. I could go on and on about that but the bottom line is there is no way to determine who is unfit. Under a lot of standards I suspect that at least 70% of those hat post o n this board would be unfit.
 
Given the way that "mental illness" has been, as it were, popularized (largely by drug companies) in the past couple of decades, it would be really problematic to decide that anyone with a diagnosis should be deprived of any rights, whether to own guns, vote, etc. Such a move would deprive far too many people of their rights for no good reason.

And it's very hard to know how much more likely the mentally ill are to commit crimes, in any case, given that when anyone without a prior record commits a violent crime, some commentators always attribute their actions to mental illness even when they've never been diagnosed with one. The whole thing becomes a bit circular: committing a violent crime becomes evidence of mental illness, therefore it's the mentally ill who commit crimes, therefore they need to be regulated more than "the rest of us."

As maestro pistolero noted, "If folks are screened according to their actual history, It's a very good predictor of future behavior." So, look at people's behavior as perhaps predictive of future violence, and then decide whether to extend restrictions on gun ownership based on criminal conduct: perhaps add some violent misdemeanors to the list, as well as the felony convictions which are grounds for restriction under current law. If there's a general pattern of continued violence following particular offenses, then it might be warranted to restrict the rights of those who commit them.

But anything of the sort should be based on data, not on unsupported assumptions about who is a threat. Restricting the civil rights of people whose only offense is living in a society in which mind-altering drugs are very heavily marketed, and believing what they see on TV, is a poor idea...

The case of narcotic pain killers is a bit different from that of psychoactive drugs, but I'd still argue that using prescribed narcotics ought not to be a reason for someone's being deprived of rights: I've known plenty of people who legitimately needed them, and they're not getting high: they are, with luck, controlling intractable pain, and they aren't necessarily mentally impaired as a side effect. When narcotics are prescribed inappropriately, to people who don't need them, that's a quite different thing; but the solution to that is to go after the prescribing doctors, not to penalize the people who legitimately need them.
 
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Yeah... we should have a board that examines everyone and determines their suitability for firearms ownership... I just insist that I'm on it.... as long as I take my meds.

Maybe we should revoke the driver licenses of hypertensive people? Never know when the "big one" is coming. Maybe the board could do that too... "Have you ever heard voices in your head? "No?" "Well here, let's check your blood pressure." "That's a little elevated there, buddy!" .....
 
Bartholomew,

I should have been more clear. I was living in a apartment complex across the street from campus whose tenants were all students. So, we just called it our dorm, even thought it was not an accurate statement. My apologies for the confusion.
 
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