MD - Multiple Victims reported in shooting in Maryland suburb, 20 Sept 2018

[MelmothTheLost]

Would she have been flagged as someone with issues if we had a system that did not allow guns for someone with mental health issues?

There's quite a lot in that sentence.

Firearms or not, she was clearly already well flagged in the system for many years of escalating mental health issues. She had more than a decade of significant issues and it sounds as though her mental health was deteriorating, both because her diagnosis of schizophrenia was relatively recent and because friends and family had noted that her behaviour was changing.

One thing we know in the UK is that just because someone with mental health issues does not have access to firearms does not mean they won't flip with whatever weapons are to hand. We have had a long parade of such patients going on stabbing rampage. In some ways that's perhaps even more problematic than gun rampages. Even if the US at federal or state level found the political will to find a way to prevent mental health patients from acquiring firearms, it's incredibly difficult to deny them access to a standard household item such as a kitchen knife. There have been some proposals here to outlaw the sale of kitchen and other knives with a point, thus making them much less liable to be abused for stabbings (not just in rampages but in domestic violence situations) but these have come to nothing.

It strikes me that if transgenderism was automatically treated as a mental health issue and medicated on that basis as part of a wider raft of mental health issues, rather than by prescribing all manner of transition hormones and other drugs whose interactions with psych drugs are apparently incredibly difficult to predict and monitor, then that might provide a way forward even if it's not the one the patient wants.

If she wanted hormones for transition but wasn't going to get them because, in the views of her doctors, her primary need was to treat her depression and schizophrenia, then it was always possible that she could have gone on a rampage sooner or later anyway. It's an impossible situation. Add testosterone to her drug mix and risk a massively aggressive response due to drug interplays. Deny her testosterone and risk a massively aggressive response due to anger.

Maybe she was always going to go berzerk sooner or later whatever was done or not done.

 

[K_Z]

Sheriff's office top official says Maryland Rite Aid shooter had schizophrenia, criticizes state gun laws

Maj. William Davis, chief of the agency’s police operations bureau, told Aberdeen’s mayor and City Council members Monday that the suspect, 26-year-old Snochia Moseley, of White Marsh, had been diagnosed with acute schizophrenia, but she answered “no” to questions about whether she had been diagnosed with a mental illness when filling out paperwork to purchase a handgun.

To be precluded from buying a firearm in Maryland, a person must have been involuntarily committed to a mental health facility for at least 30 days, but that was not the case with Moseley, according to Davis. The law also states that it must be demonstrated that the buyer presents a danger to themselves or others.

“I think all of us in the room would probably agree that somebody who has been diagnosed with acute schizophrenia should not be allowed to possess or purchase a weapon,” Davis said.

Sheriff's office top official says Maryland Rite Aid shooter had schizophrenia, criticizes state gun laws

Harford Co. shooting suspect was diagnosed with schizophrenia

Harford Co. shooting suspect was diagnosed with schizophrenia

There are certain mental illness diagnoses, Axis I disorders, that IMO, should be automatically considered for outpatient civil commitment-- and that should not, IMO, be based on involuntary hospitalization. Schizophrenia is one of them.

Mandatory outpatient commitment supervision for many Axis I diagnoses, AND mandatory reporting at EACH patient contact by all health care professionals to the NICS system, would solve the problem of self -reporting disqualifying mental illness. IMO. The background check system is so poorly designed, IMO, that it rarely catches those who should not purchase or possess guns. Just as for other background checks, we should not be relying on self reporting, and should require third party verification. For example, I cannot do my own "background check" to simply be a volunteer with children by simply stating that I am not a convicted felon, sex offender, etc. For the background check to mean something, it has to be more rigorous, and be more independent of the self reporting of the individual. And I am a strong supporter of the second amendment, and lawful adult gun ownership rights. This woman should not have been able to purchase a handgun, IMO.

But Axis I disorders are not "curable", so a diagnosis would essentially be a lifetime ban on gun ownership/ possession, as well as extremely complicated for other adults in the household that have a right to purchase/ own.

I'm not opposed to a court process for some with stable mental illness (such as depression) to return to court at a later time, and have gun ownership rights restored under proper supervision.

And lifetime bans on ownership for mental illness diagnosis (if we could ever agree on "which" mental illnesses should be on the list), would be a deterrent for some to seek care/ diagnosis.

**This is probably one of the last articles that will be published about the Rite Aid Warehouse massacre. The media has lost interest. Didn't even take a week.