U.S. Appeals Court says that just because you once had a mental illness problem doesn't allow government to ban you for life from owning guns

The risk of violence from people with mental illness is extremely low to begin with, but if the risk is low even when people are suffering a mental illness, why ban them for ever from owning a gun, even after they are cured?  From the Wall Street Journal:

In the first legal ruling of its type, a federal appeals court in Cincinnati on Thursday deemed unconstitutional a federal law that kept a Michigan man who was briefly committed to a mental institution decades ago from owning a gun. 

A three-judge panel of the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that the federal ban on gun ownership for anyone who has been “adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been committed to a mental institution” violated the Second Amendment rights of Clifford Charles Tyler, a 73-year-old Hillsdale County man. 

“The government’s interest in keeping firearms out of the hands of the mentally ill is not sufficiently related to depriving the mentally healthy, who had a distant episode of commitment, of their constitutional rights,” wrote Judge Danny Boggs, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, for the panel. 

Lucas McCarthy, Mr. Tyler’s lawyer, called the ruling “a forceful decision to protect Second Amendment rights,” and said he hoped it that it would have “a significant impact on the jurisprudence in the area of gun rights.” . . .

Do you want an idea of how difficult it is to use mental health screening to figure out who is going to engage in these mass public shootings?

If you are interested in some numbers on how hard it is to accurately screen out those who are a real danger to others, check out this link.

Do mentally ill, multiple victim killers purposefully pick targets where victims are most vulnerable?: The case of Elliot Rodger

For gun control advocates who actually read the Elliot Rodger’s manifesto, they will be in for some real surprises.  There appears to be real evidence that he picked the place to attack precisely because he didn't think that the victims would be defended.  

Obama continues to push only mental illness solutions at Fort Hood memorial

Obama's talk at the April 9th memorial at Fort Hood again emphasized only mental illness.

In our open society, in advanced bases like this, we can never eliminate every risk, but as a nation, we can do more to help counsel those with mental health issues, to keep firearms out of the hands of those who are having such deep difficulties. As a military, we must continue to do everything in our power to secure our facilities and spare others this pain. . . .

The question is: what happens if you can't accurately identify all the threats due to mental illness?  What happens if the threat is something other than mental illness?

Obama focuses on mental health but doesn't ask what we do when the screening fails

The Obama administration's push is for further mental health screening.  But many of these mass shooters were seeing psychiatric care and still not identified as showing a "sign of any likely violence either to himself or others."  That was again the case with Ivan Lopez.  The Washington Post reports:

But the Army psychiatrist who last saw Lopez found no “sign of likely violence, either to himself or to others,” McHugh told a Senate panel. . . .

Monday morning quarterbacking is so easy.  What may have been relatively trivial events gain so much more meaning after an attack has occurred. 

Changes in state mental health care since Newtown

With all this money being spend on mental health, it would be helpful if someone actually looked to see whether mass public shooters were actually not receiving care.  From Politico:

. . . At least 37 states have increased spending on mental health in the year since Adam Lanza shot dead 20 children, six school employees and his mother in Newtown, Conn. It’s not just about money, either. States are experimenting with new — and sometimes controversial — ways to raise awareness about psychological distress, to make treatment more accessible for children and adults and to keep firearms away from those struggling with mental illness. . . . 

Nevada, for instance, is launching a pilot program to screen children in secondary schools for mental health concerns. Texas not only boosted mental health funding by a record $300 million over two years, but required public school teachers and students to be trained in recognizing mental illness. Utah will require school districts to offer parents an annual seminar on mental health, including depression and suicide. Colorado established a 24-hour crisis hotline. 

The new initiatives don’t make up for the more than $4 billion cut from state mental health budgets during the lean years of the recent recession. And they weren’t universal: A half-dozen states cut funding on mental health this year, including Louisiana, Maine and North Carolina. 

But overall, advocates say they are thrilled at the breadth and depth of the commitments from lawmakers of both parties. . . .

Horrible story of retired Vet who went in for counseling and found his 100 year old antique guns confiscated

From the Daily Herald:

Arthur Lovi sat down with a therapist one day last August to talk about some things that were bothering him. He had high blood pressure, and his physician suggested he talk to someone.
He already spoke to a VA psychiatrist once a month — he has persistent memories from his days as an Air Force crash rescue helicopter pilot in the 1960s — but he agreed. He’d been through a lot lately and figured it couldn’t hurt to get some of it out.
“I felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders,” he said.
Lovi told her about the loss that had been all around him the past few years: his mother, a 3-year-old granddaughter who drowned, a son-in-law lost to a drug overdose, and worst of all, his wife of 33 years…
…After the session, Lovi’s therapist was concerned. She called the Arlington Heights police to report he had made a threat against the first doctor who saw his wife. . . .
According to an Arlington Heights police report, officers contacted the doctor who diagnosed the cold. The doctor told police he "did not feel like his safety was in immediate jeopardy."
But that night about 11 p.m. there was a knock at Lovi's door. His son answered and saw four or five police officers standing outside. . . .