For the last 25 years or so, the City of Providence (RI) has not issued a single concealed carry weapons (CCW) permit. They’ve been tossing that particular hot potato straight to the Attorney General’s (AG) office, endowed as it is with a separate but equal right to issue CCW permits. In the last year, Providence has resumed permitting. To quote Michael Caine, not a lot of people know that. Nor is it particularly relevant. The AG has a three-day turnaround. The City takes at least 90 days to process a request. If approved, the AG charges $40 every four years. The City of Providence wants $250. The only advantage: a City permit exempts the holder from RI’s seven-day “cooling off” period. So far, the City has issued one permit. One. Meanwhile, rumor has it that other RI police chiefs wants to slow down the whole process with psychological evaluations . . .
smh.com.au reports that the same idea’s kicking around New South Wales, thanks to a coroner whose remit seems to extend beyond determining an official Cause of Death.
After inquiring into the self-inflicted shooting death of a man during a confrontation with police in Sydney, Deputy State Coroner Paul MacMahon found the licensed gun owner had posed a “very great danger” to many unsuspecting people.
The 22-year-old man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, drew a Glock pistol when two police officers asked him to stop near Eastwood Mall in Sydney’s northwest on March 10, 2008.
The officers exchanged fire with the man before he shot himself in the head, Mr MacMahon said in his findings, handed down on Monday. Despite emergency surgery, the man died in hospital two days later.
An inquest, in November 2009 and March 2010, heard police evidence that the man intended to kill numerous people at random on the day he visited Eastwood Mall.
He was carrying six full magazines of ammunition at the time of his death, with more ammunition and a reloader found in his vehicle.
Although the paper doesn’t present any additional evidence that the unidentified Glock guy was an aspiring spree killer, let’s take that as writ. I mean, ipso facto right? Any gun owner that has a shootout with the police without undue provocation (again, assuming) and then tops himself is nuts. I mean, mentally ill.
And we can’t have mentally ill people running around with guns. Hence Australia (and America and every other nation that controls civilian guns) checks mental health records before issuing a permit or license. Apparently, this case proves that it’s not enough. We need to be proactive!
Although not clinically diagnosed, the inquest was told the man’s parents thought he was experiencing mental health issues, having become “isolated and secretive”.
Among three recommendations to NSW Police Minister Michael Daley, Mr MacMahon asked for greater scrutiny during the granting of firearms licences.
He asked that “applicants undergo a mental health assessment by a general medical practitioner, or other appropriate professional, so as to ensure that they are not suffering from any previously undiagnosed mental health condition that would render the applicant unsuitable for the holding of such a licence”.
It’s a clever ploy for gun control advocates, be they Australian coroners or Rhode Island police chiefs. To restrict access to firearms, all they have to do is devise a psychological exam that skews towards mental instability.
How hard would it be to find a few shrinks willing to create a test that most people would flunk, regardless of their past mental history? Easy. How many people would be put off the application process by the exam itself? Plenty. Win, win for them, then.
Gun control advocates already believe that anyone who wants a gun for self-defense, or lots of guns for the hell of it, is crazy. A psychological exam proving the point would be an excellent method to deny Australians—and Americans—their right to armed self-defense. It’s a perfect example of a “reasonable restriction” on gun control that must be opposed at every turn.
I used to work in Providence. It is my strong belief that anyone in Providence who does NOT want a gun should have his head examined.
My degree is in psychology (minor in biology and chemistry) . Im also an EMT. I have worked in several psych facilities and I have also worked as a drug abuse counselor in 3 different settings. Based on my studies and experience, I can tell you that there is no hard core irrefutable physical scientific test to prove or disprove any psychological diagnosis. There are no blood test, no cerebral spinal fluid tests, no eeg tests, no functional MRI test, no brain scans of any kind, nor any other scientific physical medical test to prove any of the psychological diagnosis being dished out by these so called “mental health care professionals” to prove that anyone is or is not mentally capable of owning a fire arm. Their diagnosis are based on biased opinion which varies from “professional” to “professional”.
In my opinion you have to look at a persons history of violence vs nonviolence. If they have a history of nonselfdefence violence like assault and battery, burglary, robery, rape, and of course murder, then these people should not own a wepon. Just know, though, that abnormal psychology, personality theary and the like is highly controversial and it would be very easy for a libral psychologist, psychiatrist, or counselor to lable some with a so called “mental illness” and have their 2nd ammendment rights taken away from them even though that person has never ever committed an act of violence in their entire life.
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