Submitted by Charlton Stanley, guest blogger
(Otteray Scribe)
What is mental illness? It’s a hot topic in the news recently, because of proposed gun control legislation. I saw a photo yesterday of people holding up a huge sign saying, “Keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill.”
There is far more to the demonization of the mentally ill than just the firearms issue. It spills over into the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Transportation. It is not just guns; it is airplanes and trucks as well. This brings us to the core question of, “What is mental illness?” The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) is the current handbook for classifying mental disorders. DSM-V is in the final stages of development and will be published in May 2013. That is only next month.
Which brings us back to the original question of what exactly is mental illness? In New York, a man’s home was raided, his Concealed Carry Permit revoked and guns confiscated because someone told the police he was taking an anti-anxiety medication. I have received emails in the past week from several friends about this issue. One of them is a vet, M→F transgendered. She is concerned about being able to renew her own Concealed Carry Permit (CCP). As a veteran and avid target-shooting hobbyist, she is well trained in gun safety and use. As a transgender woman, she is a target and prey according to FBI statistics. Hate crimes against LGBT people are at a 14-year high.
According to the DSM-IV-TR, “Gender Identity Disorder” is one of the mental illnesses. In the DSM-V, it is renamed “Gender Dysphoria.” While claiming it is not a mental illness, the fact that Gender Dysphoria is in the DSM-V in the first place makes it suspect in the eyes of many. Two days ago, she sent this excerpt from a local outlet:
The enforcement action started on March 29th when New York State Police asked the Erie County Clerk’s Office to pursue revoking the man’s pistol permit because he owned guns in violation of the mental health provision of New York’s newly enacted guns law called the SAFE ACT.
The allegation turned out to be untrue and his guns returned to him. As it turned out, the police, sua sponte, initiated the action. The only lawyer involved in the matter was the man’s own attorney.
Erie County Clerk Chris Jacobs said, “When the State Police called to tell us they made a mistake and had the wrong person…it became clear that the State did not do their job here, and now we all look foolish.”
Flaws in the mental health reporting provisions of the NY SAFE Act were blamed for the misunderstanding. The county clerk added, “Until the mental health provisions are fixed, these mistakes will continue to happen” (source: WKBW-TV)
The bigger issue is how come taking an anxiolytic prescribed by one’s family doctor disqualifying? It would be interesting to know just how many of those raiding officers, and their supervisors, are taking medication for anxiety, depression or sleep.
Is mild anxiety a reason to stigmatize someone, and possibly violate his or her civil rights? It gets better. The FAA Medical Examiner will not allow psychiatric medications for any class of Medical Certificate. If a psychiatric medication, it is an automatic disqualification. Several non-psychiatric medications are disqualifying as well. When Tagamet (cimetidine) was first released to treat ulcers and hyperacidity, it disqualified one from holding an FAA Medical Certificate in order to fly. I first heard about that from a friend who was an Aviation Medical Examiner at the time. He told me the FAA put Tagamet on the list because, “It acts on the central nervous system.”
What is mental illness? Some say it is anything that is in the DSM. However, as I have pointed out in court many times, the DSM is a handbook put together by a committee. Everyone has heard the old joke about what a committee produces: “An elephant is a mouse designed by a committee.”
The new DSM-V will be expanding the definition of ADHD. The definition of PTSD is supposed to be clarified in the final definition. Homosexuality was removed from the DSM-IV. If it was a mental illness, the why was it removed? The answer to that is simple. It is not a mental illness.
Let’s look at posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a single example of a single disorder. PTSD is classified as an anxiety spectrum disorder. Symptoms include feeling anxious, vivid dreams or memories of a traumatic event, and avoidance of situations that might remind one of the traumatic event. Those are called “triggers.” Some claim that only combat veterans can suffer PTSD. That is nonsense. The original trauma can be anything causing one to fear for their own life or safety, or that of others. No one knows how many Americans suffer from PTSD, but the NIMH estimates 7.7 million adults have diagnosable PTSD. That is about 3.5% of the population. 22% of Vietnam veterans returned with PTSD. My personal impression is that number is too low by a significant margin. Many people with PTSD have never been diagnosed. Why? Because they are afraid to talk to a doctor or clinical social worker.
How many rights should be taken from all those citizens and veterans, simply because they have PTSD?
When some of the most prominent mental health experts in the world cannot agree what mental illness diagnoses are, how are lawmakers, judges and law enforcement officers supposed to know? Is being transgendered a mental illness? How about homosexuality—oops, never mind, they took that out of the DSM-IV. There are many people with bipolar disorder walking around and you will never know it, especially if they are taking their medication. Should a person with well-controlled bipolar disorder be allowed to drive an 18 wheel truck, fly a light airplane, or own firearms?
It is interesting that the FAA has created a new class of aircraft, call Light Sport Aircraft” or LSA, which do not require an FAA medical certificate to fly. A light sport pilot may fly with a valid and current driver’s license. Glider pilots can exercise the privilege without a medical certificate.
This brings us to driver’s licenses. If a person, who is taking Xanax or some mild anti-depressant is not allowed to own firearms or fly a Cessna 172, why can they drive? An average automobile or pickup truck weighs almost two tons. They drive on two-lane roads at 55 or 60 mph. That means on a two-lane road, they are passing within two to four feet of each other with a closing speed of about 120 mph.
Just what is mental illness, and where is that bright line drawn for different activities and privileges of ownership? Think about it. Your physician has to give you a formal diagnosis in order to write a prescription for any medication. Almost any Primary Care Physician, especially family doctors, will tell you that a large percentage of their patients are receiving medications for diagnosed psychiatric conditions. The most common are depression and anxiety, either situational or endogenous.
Alcohol, in my opinion, is much more dangerous than any antidepressant or anxiolytic on the market. Yet, alcohol is legal in most areas. The individual is responsible for keeping their alcohol level under the legal limit, without any government official monitoring them. The rule for pilots is, “eight hours from bottle to throttle.” In other words, if you intend to fly, there should be at least eight hours between the last drink and flying. My rule was always 24 hours just to be on the safe side. Alcohol is involved in far more assaults, shootings, auto crashes, and suicides than any psychiatric medication I know of. That is because alcohol is a disinhibitor.
It is unfortunate that Congress saw fit to suppress data collection on firearms violence back in 1996. I see many pronouncements on violence related to firearms, but without real science, those pronouncements are meaningless. Last January, President Obama lifted the 17-year drought on data gathering. Some members of Congress and the NRA are demanding that the data not be used to promote or advocate any position on violence. Fine. That is the way data should be gathered—content neutral. That honors the null hypothesis approach to research. However the results of the data fall, it should be accessible to other researchers. It must not be buried.
Legislation and administrative rules that limit rights are already having negative effects on people with mental health issues. They do not get treatment, or ask their doctor for advice. Sometimes they lie. Sometimes a patient will show up, insist on paying cash, register under a John Doe alias, give a vacant lot as an address and use 888-88-8888 for a Social Security number. Most people who need mental health medications or treatment refuse to seek help. If anyone thinks that is a good thing, they are not paying attention.
As my father used to say, “Anybody with one eye and half-sense could have seen that one coming.”
HIPAA is supposed to keep your records private, but they are accessible with a court order. Alternately, any agency issuing a license or certificate can insist on the applicant signing a HIPAA complaint medical release form. Sign the form or you do not get your license. One must always beware the Law of Unintended Consequences.
Here are a few tidbits to chew upon. Please discuss. Where is that bright line?
I’ve been reading about the GOA over the last couple months … scary stuff from them.
Isnt the saying your rights end where my chin begins? That should apply to guns too. (And no I am not saying ban all guns but rights have limitations, The second amendment is not a free for all mandate)
rafflaw:
what guns?
Bron,
Calm yourself for your obsession with the intent of myself and others like me is devolving into hysteria. I understand the difficulty in questioning the Grand Pubah’s telepathic messages but sometimes, sometimes, the fantasizing and fatalizing is nothing more than imagination that leads to overwrought right-wing militia crap.
rafflaw, Gabby and her husband are gun owners.
I will say it again. This country has a sickness and the only medicine that may help that sickness is reasonable gun control. No Bron, not eradication of all guns and the ending of the Second Amendment, but reasonable gun control like the filibustered background check provision that a large majority of Americans are in favor of.
Swarthmore,
that was an amazing Gabby Giffords op-ed.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/18/a-shameful-day-in-the-senate.html
“This was one of the blackest days in the Senate’s history. It’s right up there with the filibusters of civil-rights bills. And make no mistake, this is a civil-rights issue. The gun nuts—and obviously, not all gun owners are nuts, not even a majority—fulminate endlessly about their rights. Well, that little boy at the Sandy Hook school who got his jaw blown clean off, whose unimaginably brave mother insisted on an open casket so people would have to deal with the reality of what guns can do, had civil rights too, the first one of which is safety in his person. So did his classmates and teachers, and so did the hundreds, thousands of victims, a train of corpses that could stretch around the world, silenced in life, and silenced again yesterday by Mitch McConnell and 45 other people who now have a little bit of those victims’ blood splattered on their hands. They will yet be heard from.” Michael Tomasky, Daily Beast
TPMDC
Democrats Blame ‘Gun Owners of America’ For Gun Control Setback
Sahil Kapur
April 8, 2013
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/04/democrats-gun-owners-of-america-background-checks.php
Excerpt:
A little known pro-gun lobby that’s well to the right of the National Rifle Association has complicated efforts to reach a solution on gun control legislation, top Democrats have said in recent days.
The Gun Owners of America has been around for decades, operating mostly in obscurity, dwarfed by the lobbying and fundraising prowess of the NRA. The group’s big gripe is that the NRA is too squishy and willing to compromise, and its recent efforts to scuttle gun control legislation appear to be scaring away Republicans amenable to background checks.
The results have frustrated Democrats trying to strike a bipartisan deal.
“The NRA — their lobbying efforts are being pushed even further to the extreme by virtue of the fact that there’s another organization called Gun Owners of America,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) told Nevada Public Radio on Friday. “Whenever the NRA tries to be reasonable, the Gun Owners of America becomes more unreasonable, and it pushes the NRA [to the right].”
GOA is proud of its obstinacy against gun control. In a New York Times profile of the group last week, its executive director Larry Pratt took credit for scaring away Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) from discussions with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) about a bipartisan compromise on expanding background checks for gun purchases.
“His staff admitted that it kind of irritated the senator,” Pratt told the paper. “We were told, ‘He’s getting tired of this.’ But when we hear complaints like that, we know we are close to success. We are happy he changed his mind.” He said GOA mobilized its proclaimed 300,000 pro-gun members to inundate GOP lawmakers with phone calls.
Bron,
Continue on in your rejection of reality and keep believing that this is about taking people’s guns away. With more than 300 million handguns in the U.S. you are talking impossibility. Even we can’t even deal with the supposed 11 million illegal aliens, how are we going to deal with 300 million guns? Yet you and others persist in this mythological thinking in a most religious manner. I guess if one believes in the divinity of Rand and Von Mises, one is capable of all sorts of counter-intuitive beliefs. However, I don’t mean to pick on you, but to make a broader point.
For years I’ve been on record on this blog as a non-gun owner who believes that the people should have the right to bear arms. As a guest blogger many of my blogs deal with possible conspiracies and definitely evince a distrust of our current governance. However, as much as a skeptic as I am, i see no reason why there shouldn’t be registration of firearms and licensing with tests and training (which could be done by the NRA among others). with all due deference to Chuck and Darren for instance (exploring the wilds of Tennessee, if we require drivers licenses/tests and pilot’s licenses/tests, why not gun licenses/registration/tests? A twelve year old can’t drive a car in all States, but in most can own a gun or a rifle. Why is that? What makes a gun more sacrosanct to peoples rights than driving a car, which is a necessity for transportation in most of this country? I frankly don’t get it except on the most paranoid level which gets down to……..comes the need for revolution. Really,
guess what, if the Revolution comes we are all screwed and those citizens groups that will replace our current broken government, will be worse probably that those they replace, which is in itself a ridiculous thought. Registering firearms, requiring licensing and training won’t stop such tragedies as we have seen. What it would do is regulate the gun industry more prudently and maybe make more gun owners aware of how to safely enjoy their weapons.
“Senators say they fear the N.R.A. and the gun lobby. But I think that fear must be nothing compared to the fear the first graders in Sandy Hook Elementary School felt as their lives ended in a hail of bullets.”
That’s how former Rep. Gabby Giffords begins her powerful op-ed on yesterday’s gun vote. http://nyti.ms/17pX1lq
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112925/small-states-sway-gun-control-debate-senate
And this is America:
Gun Violence Victims Detained, Put Through Background Check For Yelling ‘Shame On You’ At Senators
By Igor Volsky
Apr 18, 2013
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/04/18/1886801/gun-violence-victims-detained-put-through-background-check-for-yelling-shame-on-you-at-senators/
“Shame on you!” Patricia Maisch and Lori Haas yelled in rapid succession at the 46 senators who had just voted to kill a compromise amendment to expand background checks for gun purchases at gun shows or online. The women were sitting in the gallery with a large group of gun violence victims as the Senate responded to the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut by defeating the measure advocates and law enforcement officials consider crucial to keeping firearms out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill.
The pair has first-hand experience with the consequences of the broken system. In 2011, Maisch was hailed as a hero for disarming Tucson shooter Jared Loughner by wrestling him to the ground before he could reload a fresh magazine. Haas’ daughter Emily was shot twice during the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 and survived, leading her to become a proponent of stronger gun regulations. But on Wednesday afternoon, the two women faced tighter scrutiny for interrupting a Senate proceeding than many individuals seeking to purchase guns.
As they left the Senate gallery, a police officer approached and asked them to follow him. The three walked downstairs to a public hallway, where they were peppered with questions: “What’s your name?” “Where are you from?” “What are your Social Security numbers?” The officer left to run a background check on the women, who were instructed to sit on a bench. Another uniformed officer watched over them, even escorted Haas to the bathroom and told her she couldn’t lock the stall door.
Sitting there, waiting for the officer to return, Haas stewed over the failed vote. “I just can’t fathom that these people don’t have a heart,” she told ThinkProgress in a phone interview. “If they had seen, just one miniscule of the pain I’ve seen from the Virginia Tech families and so many other families that I’ve worked with in the last 6 years, they couldn’t help but want to do something about stoping gun violence.”
An hour and a half later, another law enforcement official approached and quizzed the the two women further. He asked them about their intentions and where they were from, why they were in D.C., how long they planned to stay and when they were leaving.
The entire ordeal stretched for almost two hours — approximately 115 minutes longer than a background check at a federal gun dealer. Haas noted the irony of undergoing hours of questioning while permitting gun purchases without any screening at gun shows or online.
“The irony is not lost on me and it’s not lost on the American public,” Haas said. “Very ironic that an hour and a half investigation into two women shouting in the Senate gallery takes place and yet real criminals and other prohibited purchasers get willy nilly access to fire arms.”
Blouise:
I am not a member of a right wing or left wing militia nor do I shoot anymore. I am in the process of selling the few rifles and pistols I do have.
But that is what you and others want, a total repeal of the 2nd amendment. Dont be shy, just admit it and move on. We have lost many freedoms to this incrementalism as bettykath rightly points out.
I wish more people were upset about more than just the 2nd amendment.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/04/jenny-sanford-sabotaged-mark-sanford-comeback.html Looks like Colbert Busch may win.
Mike S. You are right about the filibuster. The downside to the reform is that if the republicans take the senate in 2014, they will be enacting anti-gay and anti-woman legislation with only 51 votes.
bettykath:
yes they are.
Bron, That same logic could be used for the other 9 rights of the Bill of Rights. They’re being chipped away bit by bit.
Mike,
You are right, of course which is why nothing meaningful is going to happen at the Federal level. Concentrate on the state legislatures. Those people have to go home every night and face their constituencies. It’s working quite well in the larger populated states.