“In the months before a Goffstown kindergarten teacher was found dead Sept. 1 of a single gunshot wound in her Barnard Hill Road home, police twice had interactions with her despondent husband and on one occasion removed guns from their residence.” – Months before teacher’s death, police removed guns from home [via unionleader.com]
To summarize, the husband was frequently drunk, said seemingly crazy things about the FBI spying on him, and couldn’t responsibly handle a car or a gun at various times in the past year. The cops took all his guns (that they could find) when he said he fired a .357 down the driveway. He ran the car into a ditch trying to drive his kid to school.
The wife said she was shopping for a divorce attorney, then was found dead after she didn’t show up at her place of employment. Nobody has been charged in her death, and his family says he’s in a hospital now. Police aren’t saying whether they gave his guns back to him.
It’s sad when somebody you love is mentally ill, or alcoholic, or both, to the point it makes them unsafe to themselves or loved ones.
It’s sad when somebody leaves a ticking explosive device in your newly renovated living room. It’s stupid to stand there crying while you wait for it to go off.
If only there was a way that the police had a *list* of every gun owned so they could be held for temporary safekeeping (*cough*), that tragedy could have been avoided.
(Does that need the ‘sarc’ tag?)
Tragedy happens. It will never be eliminated…
How about this…question: ¿”Using Liberal Progressive logic. How come police departments don’t issue their own *warrants*? And how would that work out…”
Stockholm Syndrome. It’s real.
This isn’t Stockholm Syndrome.
Unfortunately mental illness and substance abuse go hand in hand. Especially with schizophrenia.
I watched a guy at a bar come in and sit down having full blown conversations with people who were not there and looking at things that weren’t there, full blown hallucinations. A friend of mine informed me that the guy was a confirmed schizophrenic (don’t ask) but that he wasn’t dangerous and that I should observe him because booze has interesting effects on schizophrenics. The guy was really well dressed. His family looked out for him (again, don’t ask).
Guy orders a glass half full of ice filled to the rim with top shelf tequila. Pounds it and orders a second. He drinks the second one pretty quick considering it what it is and orders a third. 30 minutes after entering the bar (and nearly three pints of high-end tequila later) he’s totally normal. He’s talking to bar patrons like anyone else, cracking jokes, laughing, talking about sports etc. Doesn’t even seem to be the least bit inebriated from what he’s consumed. He’s acting 100% like a normal, sober person. At that point he switched to beer.
My buddy tells me about the side effects of the meds for schizophrenia and it becomes clear why this guy chooses to destroy his liver rather than take the meds. Really sad. Even worse is how poor the research is on the disorder. The only thing that’s really known for sure is that electro-shock therapy is an instant cure for about 10-15% of people. No one knows why.
Electro-shock “therapy” is the use of high-voltage electricity to the brain to destroy (hopefully) fewer frontal lobe brain cells than a surgical lobotomy. The result of either (electro less than surgical) is essentially the death of the personality that used to inhabit the brain. Since this is the result 100% of the time any consideration of 10-15% success in “treating” schizophrenia, especially when they don’t actually know how it does it or on whom it will actually work, seems to make it a less than ideal procedure.
So far as I know elctro-shock is also used to treat severe depression and the result seems to come from the victim losing a great deal of their stored memories, which may have been the things they were depressed about. Once again, the headshrinkers don’t actually know why it seems to work or how reliable or permanent the treatment will be on an individual basis.
I’m quite well aware of the limitations. My best friend and roommate was seriously involved in the study of schizophrenia for a number of years and talked about it non-stop, basically made me read research papers on the topic and watch any scientific video he could find. It’s a fascinating topic but it’s frightening how little we actually understand about the brain.
That said, the form of electro-shock I’m referring to is not an electrically induced lobotomy and it does not result in the loss of anything. We’re not talking old-school One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest type electro-shock here.
It’s a much lower voltage and amperage which is much more selectively targeted at portions of the brain known to be overactive in schizophrenics and it literally turns 10-15% of schizophrenics into 100% normal people in one shot. There is currently no way to select candidates for this other than to offer them to choice and do the procedure if they elect to have it done. Basically it’s random.
No one really has a clue why it works other than supposition (which is that it alters the electrical pattern in that part of the brain similar to the way a defibrillator works on a non-beating heart). But then, when you really come down to it, we really don’t know jack shit about schizophrenia. Some very promising research was being done in the mid-1960’s (and into the 1970’s outside the US) using LSD to work backwards through the neurochemical cascades in the brain (LSD was developed specifically for this purpose. See Albert Hoffman’s work at Sandoz Labs.). That research was shut down by the government and has never been restarted.
The government has subsequently claimed that “Although initial observations on the benefits of LSD were highly optimistic, empirical data developed subsequently proved less promising … Its use in scientific research has been extensive and its use has been widespread. Although the study of LSD and other hallucinogens increased the awareness of how chemicals could affect the mind, its use in psychotherapy largely has been debunked. It produces no aphrodisiac effects, does not increase creativity, has no lasting positive effect in treating alcoholics or criminals, does not produce a ‘model psychosis’, and does not generate immediate personality change.
However, drug studies have confirmed that the powerful hallucinogenic effects of this drug can produce profound adverse reactions, such as acute panic reactions, psychotic crises, and “flashbacks”, especially in users ill-equipped to deal with such trauma.”
The last paragraph there has some truth to it. The first paragraph is very nearly pure bullshit. You can read The Consumer’s Union Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs (a compilation of the studies on each drug, a really big book these days btw) and what you’ll find is that what the DEA is claiming can’t be true because any research that might have refuted the claims made in the 60’s (USA) and 70’s (UK) couldn’t have been done because it was illegal. Non-existent studies don’t refute existing studies.
Sorry for the rant. It’s an interesting topic, the self-medication of these folks is equally interesting. For example, numerous schizophrenics report that taking LSD has the opposite effects it would have on you and me. Instead of hallucinating, they stop hallucinating. Something that should be researched but can’t be thanks to .gov.
Oh yeah, arrest the guns and the property like confused Liberal Progressive Safety-Police…(Re: arrest, charges, fair trail, and if adjudicated guilty—then prison…That’s how its supposed to be…)
Maybe police unions will get some more “carve-outs /=special privileges” in other states…Get special exemptions so domestic violence issue don’t effect them…Extra rights by job title…They need their duty sidearms, right…(gun control in the name of public safety—for little people of course….)
They locked up the man’s guns. What about his knives? His hands and feet? Blunt objects? Him?
And how would any of that prevented what might be a suicide?
We are truly a sad lot. Faced with a complex problem, mental illness among gun owners, our reply is, “TS. S happens; deal with it (because it will never by my problem). “Shall not infringe!”
If our only answer to guns and mental illness is “destruction” (to borrow from an earlier posting), how are we different from those who believe that the only way to make society safe from guns is to destroy them all? If improving mental health programs means premption of gun rights, do we really support improving mental health?
How smug we must all feel.
That’s not smugness. It’s simply not lying to ourselves about the universe we live in. We’re not being callous. We’re being rational. Nobody ever said, TS it’s not me so it’s not my problem. What they’re saying is TS. When it happens to me I won’t expect much in the way of sympathy because there are no guarantees in or of life.
At least they’re not being smug virtue signalling douchenozzles convinced of their own superiority, scurrying around in a short pointless little life while remaining blissfully unaware of all those things. Acknowledging that you don’t matter to the universe or to the town, county, state, country or world at large and that nothing that happens to you really matters and that the masses don’t care at all about what happens to you because that would be a pointless WOMBAT (waste of money brains and time) is the first step to obtaining some humility and getting an even bead on your place in a completely indifferent universe. You might try it out.
We who say, shiz happens aren’t being callous. We’re being observant. We know that choices we make have consequences and that liberty is dangerous.
Thanks for the civil response. Interesting thoughts, but possibly the extreme minority thinking. Overall, the attitude of POTG represented here still seems to be that if improving mental health of who knows how many potential abusers means any curtailment of “gun rights”, in any manner, the response is “TS, TS”. The latter would point to naked callousness.
SIA, even if you are considering the costs of all-in care and healing of the mentally ill by a bunch of overpaid government quacks, which I doubt you are, you still seem to be ignoring the simple fact that the planet is overpopulated by a bunch. The population of the US has doubled since I was born, and I have heard that half of the humans who have ever lived are alive today. This is unsustainable, but we are coming to a point where if cost is no object people could all live to 100 or beyond. We get crazy over preventing the next pandemic, although we need one, or another world war. Eventually everyone will have to accept the genius of the Chinese restricting families to a single child, and start enforcing that.
Feeling as though we should have huge budgets to rescue criminally insane people sounds nice, but is impractical. THIS, BTW, is callousness. Also masquerading as practicality.
“The population of the US has doubled since I was born, and I have heard that half of the humans who have ever lived are alive today. This is unsustainable,…”
Wasn’t the Malthusian economic theory blown-up a few decades ago?
Are we left with the cruelty of declaring that marred lives (injury, sickness or mental problems) are not worth the coin? Isn’t that the mantra of Ezekiel Immanuel, and Obamacare/government run healthcare? Are we saying some lives just aren’t worth living?
The mentally ill should be lobotomized and sent home or euthanized.
No other treatment works for very long.
I’ll take the euthanasia if I go coconut..
You keep saying “we”, Sam I Am. “We are a sad lot”. “How smug we must all feel”.
I actually get the impression you are saying “You all are a sad lot” , and “How smug you all must feel”.
Besides your rather condescending and arrogant attitude, why should I feel that I am a sad individual or that i feel smug that I don’t have the sick and co-dependent need to take responsibility for the bad choices that other people make? Why should I feel that I am a sad or smug individual for not blaming those bad choices on an inanimate object?
If I did either of those things, I would be showing incredible contempt for another persons sovereign free will and the free choices that they make, and the consequences of those choices, as you are in fact doing.
I feel bad for the mentally ill, which is why I don’t resent the posts of Sam I Am.
Hmm, sorry Ralph, what does feeling sorry about the mentally ill have to do with Sam I Am’s contempt for free peoples choices, and blaming an inanimate object for the consequences of when they don’t make the right decisions?
.
Sam Is not contemptuous of the choice of free people. Asking a question, presenting a controversial observation is not contemptuous. Questioning demonstrations (or lack) of our basic humanness is not contemptuous. Contemptuous are those for whom the guiding principle of life is “Eat s-t and Die”.
Maybe you should re-read your own initial response Sam I Am. I don’t see a question.
“We are truly a sad lot. Faced with a complex problem, mental illness among gun owners, our reply is, “TS. S happens; deal with it (because it will never by my problem). “Shall not infringe!”
If our only answer to guns and mental illness is “destruction” (to borrow from an earlier posting), how are we different from those who believe that the only way to make society safe from guns is to destroy them all? If improving mental health programs means premption of gun rights, do we really support improving mental health?
How smug we must all feel.”
What I read was a couple of contemptuous declarative statements, based in about how people that don’t agree with you are “sad” and “smug”, because they don’t agree that “pre(e)mption of gun rights” will help solve mental health issues, or stop crazy people from committing mass murder, whether by bomb, semi-trailor truck, knife, or a gun.
I grew up with a severely schizophrenic sister that started hearing voices and seeing monsters in her mid teens. She’s in a mental hospital now, since psych med’s are not very effective for her. I love her still, but if she had gone all Adam Lanza and killed us all, (she has a very violent side), it wouldn’t be her fault, but since my dad and mom were raging liberals, home carry was not even an option.
So you can get all existential, but as a baptized christian, I can say that while my sister might not have ended up in hell for killing what she might have thought were a bunch of monsters; my mom and dad, as relatively sane people; might have ended up there for being so irresponsible as to not provide adequate protection and care for them and their five children.
It is not that people “don’t agree” with me. It is that people who weild deadly weapons appear to not care at all about removing a “most efficient and effective” weapon from people who have a history of behavior that calls into serious question their ability to act responsibily with and around guns. What makes us sad is the propagation of a message that because guns, people who are most likely to misuse and abuse must be allowed to put others at risk…with on effort on the part of POTG to support any action that might reduce the risk.
The wording you copied is not contempt. It is an observation of attitudes expressed on this blog. As I said, questioning, debating, disclaiming, drawing conclusions are not acts/indicators of contempt. Contempt would look more like this, “People who believe gun rights are absolute, that no society can legitimately regulate gun possession/use, are pinheads lacking the basic mental capacity to be trusted with buttered toast, let alone guns.”
BTW, even thought I have yet to actually buy a gun (rentals are just fine for now), I am probably more likely to support the “absolutist” (including felons) viewpoint. But, living in a nation of other humans, I realize there are social compromizes by the dozens that must be accepted in order to avoid the rule of the jungle. Guns may, or may not, be one of those adjustments.
Ahh, now we are getting to the meat of it. You see Sam I Am, you, like many that are not regular, every day carriers of those “instruments of mass destruction” have placed an almost mythic fetishized weight upon an inanimate object. For those of us, like myself, that do carry a firearm on a daily basis, we understand it is the mind, heart and the hands of those consumed with committing mass death, that is the true danger, not a simple, though effective tool.
So others have said, as I will say, if a person cannot be trusted to own a firearm in public, then they cannot be trusted to BE in public. Why?
Because those of us that do not fetishize a firearm, understand that when the desire to commit mass murder has turned into action, then all tools can be made into effective killing “weapons”.
A vehicle, a bomb, a can of gas and matches, a semi-truck driven through a crowd, a box cutter and a plane, all can and have committed more deaths in a single event, than any single individual with a gun.
So when I see you promoting restrictions of a basic human right like the right to keep and bear arms because they might commit mass murder, but then allow them to remain free in public with access to all the other tools they can use to kill even more people, I see someone that is delusional, in denial and ultimately a promoter of further government tyranny.
Hhmmm, reading skills people. @ThomasR, your reply was to Ralph, but seems to be addressed to me.
Knee-jerk reactions are one of the things anti-gunners accuse POTG of, and which POTG are guilty of.
You did make an interesting statement, “…if a person cannot be trusted to own a firearm in public, then they cannot be trusted to BE in public.” As written, this is a clarion call to lock-up indefinitely everyone with signs of mental illness, and people with domestic abuse restraining orders. Both are groups who have not been convicted of anything, but shouldn’t have firearms? Or do we place society in a position (which we already have) of enduring the killings we have experienced (most mass killers have mental problems, many restrained persons have mental problems) at the hands of those two groups?
Typing this real slow to make it easier to read…..I like guns (so far just mechanics and engineering), I shoot guns (rentals), put to the test I am an absolutist regarding gun rights (even while incarcerated). I also see there is a problem of civil rights regarding freedom of mentally ill, and those who are under restraining order (no, those “some stranger initiated the order” laws are not legitimate). Guns don’t kill people, people do. It is that group of the people who are unable to control themselves that I am curious about how. Can POTG support anything that does not leave guns in the hands of the unreliable? Are POTG claiming that mass killings (or even family killings) by damaged people are just not worth the time or effort to attempt to reduce? Or are POTG favoring anything but restricting gun rights of an identifiable group of seriously precarious individuals?
Sigh. Sorry Sam I Am, you keep accusing me of things you seem to have a problem with. In this case, reading comprehension.
I write in my replies, the name of the person that I am replying too, so there is no confusion as to who the reply is meant for. Sam I Am.
You are also the one that has comprehension problems of what absolute means. Too make it blunt, you are not an absolutist if you accept restrictions of citizens gun rights, because they might be dangerous, but then allow them to remain free in public.
So no, for me, there is no acceptable restrictions of a citizens gun rights, unless they have been judged, by a court of law and a jury of his peers, and has been incarcerated. PERIOD. Which under current law, most of those that have mental issues but have not actually broken any laws, or with domestic violence charges, would stay free, I am fine with that. But, Sam I Am asks, what about those necessary compromises we all must make to improve the safety of everyone in a society?
And I reply, the compromise, would be to eliminate all gun free zones; schools, government buildings , etc. and allow those with CCL’s to carry everywhere legally while in public, so that when a mass murderer goes all mass murdery, free citizens have a chance to defend themselves and others.
Is this comprehensive enough?
Ah yes. The old “no restrictions on guns, except those restrictions I support” routine. Accepting any restriction (“unless they are judged”?) is merely a matter of preference regarding restrictions. You like restrictions of gun rights when it suits you, but will not emotionally accept any other preference in the conversation. Intellectually, academically, I can stand with those who believe there should be absolutely zero restrictions on gun ownership/possession; none, ever. A “natural, civil, human right” is absolute, or it is not a “right”; it is a privilege subject to societal curbs. No matter how you slice it, restrictions of rights for those “judged” means there are some “reasonable” restrictions. If you grant one, you must entertain others, if you would remain intellectually honest.
My original commentary was to highlight that people who possess deadly power, and also take no interest in addressing a specific venue of misuse of guns, are a sad lot (since I frequent this blog, that charge includes me). Such a stance reeks of “I’ve got mine; f/u”. It also confirms one of the effective attacks by anit-gunners; that POTG are mean, callous, uncaring, selfish.
My comments were not in support of suspending all possession of firearms, but a challenge to the single-minded to engage in posing solutions. As an absolutist, I would defend against any restrictions of gun rights; as a human in society, I must not be blind to the damage my position could enable. Questioning one’s immutable ideas is always a profitable exercise.
The idea that “giving an inch” to gun-grabbers leads immediately to gun confiscation is a poor response. Because your gun right have already been compromised to the point that gun confiscation will soon be on the table, regardless of what you think or do. So wrestling with ideas to reduce gun abuse by the mentally impaired, or domestic abuser, could be a net good thing. The three monkey approach isn’t saving lives.
Well, Sam I Am, you are funny, you lecture me as a supposed absolutist that my “compromise” of eliminating all GFZ’s while allowing CCL’S people to carry everywhere in public with no other restrictions in being able to carry a firearm, is unacceptable because that would make it a privilege and not a right; then you turn right around and say that making compromises on restricting gun rights to dangerous people are needed, otherwise, anti -gun people will call us “callous”.
Dude, make up your mind. If you’re an “absolutist” on gun rights, that means you will not accept any restrictions on basic access to firearms, or any other weapons suitable for the battle field.
As for me, I was being Ironic to show up your own willingness to compromise. If you have not committed any crimes to be jailed for, you have a right to carry anywhere that you can legally be in public, without a need for a license or permit. That includes felons, once they are out of jail.
And no, I’m not an absolutist. I think citizens should have access to all the implements of war, except nuclear weapons, poison gas, and biologicals. So call me wishy washy on “gun rights”.
“…then you turn right around and say that making compromises on restricting gun rights to dangerous people are needed, otherwise, anti -gun people will call us “callous”.
Nope. What I said was that refusing to even discuss methods and means that could have a positive impact is what hands anti-gunners some of their ammunition.
“…my “compromise” of eliminating all GFZ’s while allowing CCL’S people to carry everywhere in public with no other restrictions in being able to carry a firearm, is unacceptable because that would make it a privilege and not a right,,,”
Nope. What I wrote was that eliminating GFZs, etc. would do nothing to address the situation posted (domestic abuser, mentally ill). AND, that any allowed compromise (people “judged” unsafe…your words, I believe) defeats “the absolute right to keep and bear arms”. Once even your exception is allowed, approved, accepted, acquiesced, then “absolute rights” become privilege (at the whim of authorities). Bowing to any restriction on “natural, human and civil rights” means exceptions are merely preferences established by society. Once any “right” is curtailed, it cannot be “absolute, except”. Thus, my preference might be to take your exception one step further, to include restraining orders or arrests.
“If you’re an “absolutist” on gun rights, that means you will not accept any restrictions on basic access to firearms, or any other weapons suitable for the battle field. ”
Two parts here:
a) Intellectually/academically, I can sympathsize with the absolutist stance; as a member of a community of humans, I have reservations.
b) I do support and declare the intent of the founders was to ensure the local militias has the exact same armament as the standing army that an out-of-control central government to use to oppress the populace; all current weapons of war, whatever time frame.
“So call me wishy washy on ‘gun rights’ “.
Nope. Never thought, indicated or presumed that. My sense of your commentary was/is that you reject all thought of any restriction on “gun rights”; an “aboslutist” in the popular sense (exceptions for whatever you deem “reasonable” restrictions).
It is not inconsistent of thought to have a laboratory sense of one concept (absolute gun rights), and a human, social sense that may be in conflict with the laboratory. It is an acknowledgement that the affairs of man are not easily addressed by formulaic slogans.
With appropriate treatment, guns can lead productive and fulfilling lives. I guess the guns that were removed must have called gun buddies in to do the job out of spite. OR… maybe… a person did a thing with a thing rather than the thing being to blame because things are just things?
If you want to play with your thing at least be smart enough to do it behind closed doors.
Can someone please explain: how will removing firearms from the home of a disturbed husband ensure the well-being of his wife when that husband can easily kill his wife with a single hammer blow to her head while the wife is asleep in bed?
If removing firearms from the home therefore does absolutely NOTHING to ensure the well-being of the wife, what is the point of removing firearms from the home? And why was there no ACTION to: treat the husband’s mental illness, commit the husband to a psychiatric hospital, and/or move the wife across country away from the husband?
Could it be because guns, especially handguns, are the most efficient and effective means of delivering a deadly result? That is the reason we cling to guns as the best means of self-defense. Why not the best means of deadly assault?
This. I am so freakin’ tired of people trying to have it both ways. I bet people here don’t carry hammers around for self-defense. If taking guns away doesn’t do anything then that means it doesn’t matter if they’re taken away!
No. Guns are much more dangerous than most other hand weapons. Not only do they allow the unskilled to be more deadly than the would be otherwise on a strength and technical level (think of how they changed warfare by allowing barely trained peasants to take down skilled warriors) but, crucially, they are easier to use psychologically. For most people it’s much easier to shoot someone by just pulling a trigger than to choke them or stab them. Remember the horrific scene in Saving Private Ryan? Yeah, you know which one I’m talking about. It’s a lot harder to do that than to just shoot someone.
That doesn’t mean I support the government being able to disarm anyone who has a DUI or whatever. But I’m not kidding myself by pretending that “well, we couldn’t possibly do anything, he could just use his fists.” No, we could do something, but we chose not to because the rights of us all cannot be so easily tossed away.
Took me awhile (and a nip or two of Jameson’s), but I think you are agreeing with me somewhat. Agreeing refusing to do anything is intolerable. Of course, maybe that second shot of Jameson’s clouded my clear thinking after the first one, and we disagree afterall.
Did the police take her guns? The assumption is that he had or obtained yet another gun or the guns were returned by the police. However, that’s not a proven fact.
While the gun grabbers like the idea of taking guns, they never seem to follow through. Just take the guns and assume the problem is solved. After all, nobody kills themselves or another person with anything but a gun.
Did the police do a poor search to find all the guns?
Fedup comments that the wife was “shopping for a divorce.attorney.” Think about that. How much “shopping” did she do? Open a web link? Go to several appointments and spend money?
What we have is the tear jerker “if only there were no guns” and not much information.
“A relative of Chris Tefft… said, shortly before her death Wendy Tefft asked her to recommend an attorney because she was going to get a divorce.”
That claim, and the fact that Chris drove into a ditch the day Wendy was shot, are about all we know from the linked article, 9 weeks after she died of a GSW.
It does look like Chris and Wendy should be the top suspects in Wendy’s death.
At this point, police still aren’t saying whether this was a murder, suicide or accident.
At the risk of being insensitive, the lack of a comma makes that quote kinda funnny.
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