Stop That Charitable Activity Right Now!

From August 26, 2013 ABC News:

A North Carolina church group said they were prevented from handing out food to the homeless after police threatened them with arrest, according to their website.

For the past six years, volunteers from Love Wins Ministries frequented Moore Square in Raleigh, N.C., on Saturdays and Sundays to give out hot coffee and a breakfast sandwich to those in need, according to the church group's website.

But when volunteers went down to their usual weekend spot to dole out the 100 sausage biscuits and the gallons of coffee they had brought to feed the crowds who had gathered Saturday morning, they were also greeted by officers with the Raleigh Police Department, according to a statement on the church group's website.

I understand why cities do this; they get complaints about homeless people from residents and businesses.  Sometimes, the organizations doing this are intentionally provocative, like Food Not Bombs (who are upset that San Francisco city government isn't far enough left).  And of course, Raleigh is a center-left city government in an otherwise somewhat conservative state.  But since no one wants to really deal with the core issue for most of the homeless -- mental illness -- I can see why church groups are doing what Jesus commanded us, to help those in need.

At Least No One Died

From August 21, 2013 USA Today:

DECATUR, Ga. — Atlanta-area residents were breathing a sigh of relief Wednesday while authorities were trying to determine why a man fired shots inside an elementary school a day earlier.

Antoinette Tuff, the bookkeeper at Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy, was being credited with calming the gunman down and convincing him to surrender. She told ABC on Wednesday that the suspect, Michael Brandon Hill, told her he had recently stopped taking medication. She said he added that he was going to die -- along with police officers. No one was injured....

Hill's brother, Timothy, told ABC News that the suspect has "long history of medical disorders" including bipolar disorder, and was bound to "do something stupid."

Timothy Hill, 22, said he's not close to his brother and thinks he last saw him in January 2011. Hill, who said his brother once threatened to kill him, also said Michael Hill was taking drugs for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder as early as age 6.

I wonder if ADHD was the original diagnosis, but the right diagnosis was bipolar disorder?  My guess is that because ADHD used to be a very fashionable disorder for hard to control little kids, that's what he was diagnosed with, and treated for -- and of course, that would likely have been the wrong treatment for someone with bipolar disorder.

Working on a Law Review Article...

I am trying to find the earliest laws that create a firearms disability based on mental illness or retardation -- especially any laws in effect before 1968, when the Gun Control Act of 1968 passed.

I started with California, because I know the statutes pretty well. Cal. Welfare & Institutions Code 8100 and 8103 are the applicable statutes -- but I am having a hard time finding when these first appear. The current text is derived from Stats. 1967, Ch. 1667 (the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act that helped to make big cities in California into open wards). My search of the publicly visible Nexis database of California court decisions, as well as published books, finds no references to earlier statutes. Part of me finds this hard to believe -- and part of me doesn't. I can easily believe that until deinstitutionalization, California didn't worry much about mentally ill people with guns, because they hospitalized them.

Any statutes that you are aware, please let me know.

One Of Many Interviews I Did Earlier This Year

This is an MP3 file.

Another Article About the Marijuana/Schizophrenia Causation Issue

By Dr. Samuel T. Wilkinson, "a resident physician in the Department of Psychiatry at The Yale School of Medicine" in the July 1, 2013 Wall Street Journal.  As I have also pointed out in my writings on the subject:

If legalization is certain to decrease the power of drug lords in Mexico and other countries, then this is certainly a favorable outcome. However, if the trade-off is that more people suffer from schizophrenia—and thus more Americans are homeless and debilitated—then this must be recognized and discussed by the general public. This association between marijuana and serious and devastating psychotic disorders has been absent or under-recognized in the public debate.

New PJMedia Article

"Florida's Mental Illness and Guns Bill"

Not my subtitle, by the way.

Florida HB-1355

Shall Not Be Questioned is blogging about HB-1355, a bill sitting on Florida Governor Scott's desk at the moment concerning firearms disability and mental illness.  I have not given an extended explanation of my support for the bill, partly because PJMedia will be publishing something by me shortly about it, and I have written a much more extensive article for Shotgun News on the subject.  Shortest version: won't do enormous good (but perhaps some); some potential for misuse (although not much, because of how carefully it is worded); not an adequate substitute for solving the mental health problem.

"Gun Control Is Not The Answer To Mass Shootings"

The title of an article in the June 22, 2013 U.K. Guardian:

Only a small fraction of mentally ill people ever become violent, and then, usually, when they fail to get treatment. Individuals with a severe mental illness should not be allowed to purchase guns or have access to them. Combine guns and untreated mental illness: you have a tragedy waiting to happen.

The tragic mass shootings in Newtown, Aurora, Tucson and Virginia Tech reportedly all involved untreated mental illness. After each such tragedy, I hear people say, "Those parents knew their sons were ill; why didn't they do something to prevent that tragedy?" Once your child turns 18, he or she has a civil right to refuse treatment and remain mentally ill until or unless she or he becomes suicidal or homicidal, as determined by judges at commitment hearings. State laws vary, but all states set strict controls regarding involuntary hospitalization and forced treatment, limiting it to circumstances when a person is an imminent danger to self or others, or likely to become so.

These laws give adults with mental illness the right to decide when, where, how and even if they will receive treatment. Yet, some serious mental illnesses make it difficult for those affected to assess their own need for treatment. When patient rights exceed necessary protections, individuals with severe mental illness can die. And many do. And sometimes, they harm others along the way.

The article is by a woman whose son committed suicide after a long and tragic history.  Worth reading in full.  The comments, of course, are full of "gun control is the answer" nonsense, because the Guardian is a British newspaper, and many Britons have been told this so long that is like the advertising line in Idiocracy: "Brawndo: It's what plants crave."  They have been told it so long that they are generally unable to consider any other explanation.

The fact that the Guardian, a Labour Party newspaper, is prepared to publish such an un-PC article is one of the reasons that I read and respect it, in spite of its leftist orientation. 

Florida's Mental Health & Guns Bill

My first reaction was negative, but reading the text of it, I see why NRA is backing it.  It is narrowly written, but has the potential to disarm some severely mentally ill persons who are hard to commit right now, but pretty obviously are a danger to self or others.  It is no substitute for correcting the mistake of deinstitutionalization, but it isn't a serious problem, and might occasionally do some good.

PJMedia Article About Santa Monica College Murders Now Up

The Santa Monica College Mass Murder: How Did It Happen?

The Mass Murder at Santa Monica College

From June 9, 2013 CNN:

Police had contact with the gunman in 2006, but because he was a juvenile then, authorities couldn't release further information, Santa Monica Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks said.

A law enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN on Saturday that the gunman had suffered mental health issues. A few years ago, he was hospitalized for treatment after allegedly talking about harming someone, according to the official.

It's not clear whether the state government or his family committed him for treatment or whether he committed himself. It's also unclear under what circumstances he was released.

And yet California has had an assault weapon ban since 1989  (the year the shooter was born) and on transfers of high-capacity magazines since 2000 (when the shooter was eleven years old).  It has required all firearms transfers to be done through a background check since 1991 (when the shooter was two) and it appears that the shooter had been committed at some point -- which is one of the things the California background check includes.

According to Hoyt Mentions My Brother Ron

The blog According to Hoyt mentions My Brother Ron in a long meditation on libraries and reading.

UPDATE: The Smallest Minority also mentioned My Brother Ron as part of a discussion of the problem of mental illness, deinstitutionalization, and mass murder.

Classic Schizophrenia Symptoms

From June 6, 2013 Fox News Latino:

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. –  After he said he heard voices coming through the television telling him to go to his mother's house and "get the clones out," a New Mexico man stabbed, severely beat and kidnapped his mother and another person, and then threw his mother off a bridge into the Rio Grande in broad daylight, according to a criminal complaint.

Martin Montano, 26, told detectives that he tossed his 61-year-old mother, Hope Montano, from a bridge in Albuquerque on Tuesday after stabbing and choking her at her home, the complaint said.

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2013/06/06/nm-man-throws-mother-off-bridge-after-stabbing-her-claims-heard-voices/#ixzz2VSkM4vY2

Not the first time that Mantano has been in trouble with the law:

Records show that Montano was arrested in August 2012 for false imprisonment and battery against his mother. In that case, Montano was seen by officers restraining his mother from opening the door to allow police in and pushing her to the ground shouting, "you have demons in you."

Police said Montano's mother declined to give a written statement at the time but requested information on getting a protective order against her son.

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2013/06/06/nm-man-throws-mother-off-bridge-after-stabbing-her-claims-heard-voices/#ixzz2VSkYESqV 

You wonder what it costs to keep ignoring these problems, instead of providing the help that Montano clearly needed?

There Are Descriptions For Which No Comment Is Printable

I know not to trust everything that appears in Wikipedia, but a reader brought this to my attention, and it is rather like a contest to identify the number of despicable, wrong, horrible, evil things that can be done to a person, describing Brenda Spencer, who was one of the first mass murderers at a school in the modern era:

Spencer excelled in photography, winning first prize in a Humane Society competition.^[6] After her parents had separated, she lived with her father in virtual poverty; they slept on a single mattress on the living room floor. Police later found half empty alcohol bottles throughout the house. In 2001 she accused her father, Wallace Spencer, of having drunkenly subjected her to beatings and sexual abuse.^[7] He said the allegations were not true.^[8] Spencer is said to have self-identified herself as "having been gay from birth."^[9]

In early 1978, staff at a facility for problem pupils which Spencer had been referred to due to truancy, informed her parents that she was suicidal. In the summer Spencer was arrested for shooting out the windows of the Cleveland Elementary with a BB gun, and burglary. In December a psychiatric evaluation arranged by her probation officer recommended Spencer be admitted to a mental hospital due to her depressed state, but her father refused to give permission. For Christmas 1978 he gave her a Ruger 10/22 semi-automatic .22 caliber rifle with a telescopic sight and 500 rounds of ammunition.^[8][10] Spencer later said: "I asked for a radio and he bought me a gun." To the question as to why he might have done that, she answered: "I felt like he wanted me to kill myself."

Wake Up: Gun Control Vote Failed: There Are Other Problems

Instapundit points to this April 22, 2013 Chicago Sun-Times article about a mentally ill woman who has been arrested 396 times on numerous charges, some of them for violent crimes, but she is still out on the street:

Since 1978, Chicago Police alone have arrested Miles 396 times, mostly on the North Side — under at least 83 different aliases. Those arrests include 92 for theft, 65 for disorderly conduct, 59 for prostitution-related crimes and five for robbery or attempted robbery. 

The frustrating truth: The system — strapped by overcrowded prisons and cuts to mental health funding — hasn’t been able to save Miles from herself or to help the communities she menaces. Nothing has worked. Not jail. Not prison. Not countless psychological exams for the woman described as being “acutely psychotic.”

And thanks to Instapundit for linking to my book about this problem -- the one that the mainstream media would prefer to ignore.  And Dave Kopel is banging the drum over at April 18, 2013 National Review:

Today is a good day to begin what should have begun on December 15, 2012: the search for genuine reforms that could help prevent another Newtown...

Because only a very small percentage of people who are mentally ill are dangerously violent, it is essential that dialogue about reforms not stigmatize the mentally ill as a general class. As with the deprivation of any constitutional right, there must be strong protections for due process, including fair hearings where both sides can present evidence, and a neutral decision-maker. Especially with regard to America’s veterans, such reforms are long overdue, and Senator Richard Burr’s reform amendment on this issue got 56 votes yesterday.

But mental-health reforms must go far beyond the issue of gun possession. Some of the violent mentally ill, like the Aurora murderer, can build sophisticated bombs. Anyone who is severely mentally ill and violent can run over a crowd of people with a car.

The murderers in Tucson, Aurora, and Newtown were all people who should have been civilly committed for treatment. Half a century ago, they could have been. State-level reforms should strengthen civil-commitment laws while fully respecting due process. States’ funding for mental -health treatment needs to be greatly increased. Over the past months, I have received many e-mails from people who know someone who is mentally ill and violent; again and again, they are told that the state or local government has no resources to help the individual — until the individual is caught perpetrating a violent felony, and then the individual will be imprisoned. In fact, more spending on mental health now would pay for itself in the long run with reduced prison costs.

The Other Bomber

The April 15, 2013 Idaho Statesman reports on the man who apparently killed himself (perhaps by accident) with a homemade bomb in California a few days ago:

COSTA MESA, CALIF. — A man who was killed when a homemade explosive blew up at his home was an eccentric who bicycled around his neighborhood dispensing anti-government conspiracy pamphlets, neighbors said Monday.

"He definitely seemed paranoid about things and people," Donna Swift said. "It was getting more extreme."

Some of what his pamphlets had to say caused him to be held for a 72 hour mental health evaluation some years ago, and he was apparently widely recognized as having serious mental illness problems, but as these things usually go, nothing was done about it:

A long, rambling article called "The Pricker" posted on the Internet mentions the man's address and is subtitled: "A True Story of Assassination, Terrorism And High Treason."

The article, dated 2002 and updated in 2005, says the pricker is a concealable weapon that can inject diseases into victims without their knowledge and contends that U.S. government assassins had infected people with AIDS and other diseases.

A variety of other plots are mentioned and the writer adds: "There are more plots coming, more subtle and powerful motivational implants, robot weapons, biological weapons, and colossal deceptions. We all need to realize that if we do not get this situation under control (or out from under control), that our entire species will perish."

This is very sad.  He was pretty clearly mentally ill -- but he was not an imminent threat to self or others.  Fortunately, whatever he was fiddling with, he never had a chance to use it against others.

Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2013/04/15/2535435/explosion-kills-calif-man-neighbors.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2013/04/15/2535435/explosion-kills-calif-man-neighbors.html#storylink=cpy

Bus Ticket Therapy

This happens a lot, but this the first time that I have seen evidence of it being official state mental hospital policy.  From the April 15, 2013 Sacramento Bee:

Over the past five years, Nevada's primary state psychiatric hospital has put hundreds of mentally ill patients on Greyhound buses and sent them to cities and towns across America.

Since July 2008, Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital in Las Vegas has transported more than 1,500 patients to other cities via Greyhound bus, sending at least one person to every state in the continental United States, according to a Bee review of bus receipts kept by Nevada's mental health division.

Nevada's mental health agency claims that they are simply returning mentally ill tourists back home -- but some of the examples that the Bee's investigation found were clearly not in this category.  One example involved a man that they shipped to Sacramento, who had never been to California:

Nevada's approach to dispatching mentally ill patients has come under scrutiny since one of its clients turned up suicidal and confused at a Sacramento homeless services complex. James Flavy Coy Brown, who is 48 and suffers from a variety of mood disorders including schizophrenia, was discharged in February from Rawson-Neal to a Greyhound bus for Sacramento, a place he had never visited and where he knew no one.

The hospital sent him on the 15-hour bus ride without making arrangements for his treatment or housing in California; he arrived in Sacramento out of medication and without identification or access to his Social Security payments. He wound up in the UC Davis Medical Center's emergency room, where he lingered for three days until social workers were able to find him temporary housing.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/14/5340078/nevada-buses-hundreds-of-mentally.html#storylink=cpy

 Some years back, one of the towns in Oregon gave a one-way bus ticket to a homeless mentally person to send him to a small town near Santa Rosa.  Their problem became California's problem, as he opened up a tank car of ammonia into the Russian River, polluting Santa Rosa's water supply for several days. 

These tragedies happen all the time in the U.S.  Why fix problems when you can just buy someone a bus ticket, and make it someone else's problem?

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/14/5340078/nevada-buses-hundreds-of-mentally.html#storylink=cpy

Mass Stabber in Texas Undergoing Psychological Evaluation

From April 10, 2013 CNN:

Quick told investigators he had fantasies of killing people and had been planning the attack for some time, sheriff's officials said late Tuesday. Quick used "a razor-type knife" to stab his victims, they added.

What a surprise.  And how will a gun control law prevent a tragedy like this?

Mass Murders In Europe Again

From the April 9, 2013 Canadian National Post:

VELIKA IVANCA, Serbia — A 60-year-old veteran gunned down 13 people in Serbia, including his mother, his son and a two-year-old cousin, in a pre-dawn house-to-house rampage Tuesday before shooting himself and his wife, police and hospital officials said.

The man, identified as Ljubisa Bogdanovic, used a handgun in the shooting spree at five houses in Velika Ivanca, a village 50 kilometres southeast of Belgrade, emergency hospital spokeswoman Nada Macura said.

Twelve people were killed immediately between 5 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. and one person died in a Belgrade hospital, Serbian police chief Milorad Veljovic said. The man and his wife were both severely injured by the shootings and another person was also injured, Macura said.

Ordinarily, there is a history of mental illness in these cases.  This is a bit more complicated:

Macura, the hospital spokeswoman, said the shooter had no known history of mental illness. Stanica Kostadinovic, another neighbor, said the man’s father had hanged himself when he was a young boy and his uncle had a history of mental illness.

Because mental illness runs in families, I find myself wondering if it was not recognized, or developed suddenly.

On BBC World Service at 6:00 AM GMT Thursday Morning

It should be fun.

UPDATE: It was!  Just got off the phone -- and I nailed this interview!  I explained that I had just finished the analysis of the effects and statistical significance or murder rate changes in states with mandatory background check systems (surprise, surprise, they don't seem to make a clear difference) and then launched into why the root cause is mental health care, and Professor Segal's work that shows what does make a difference.  The interviewer was clearly unprepared for what I was prepared to do!

Yahoo!

Now, if only there was some way to get on local radio stations here in Boise.

UPDATE: A reader found the interview and clipped it down to just my part of the news show.  This is the MP4 format version. And the MP3 version.  You will probably have to right click, Save Link As... to download these.