Gun Control Targeting Dangerous Symptoms

New York has revoked gun rights for over 40,000 people deemed dangerous by mental health professionals.  Are all of these people really dangerous?  Are other people who fear losing their gun rights deterred from seeking help?  These questions suggest a differently targeted alternative: empower law enforcement officers to revoke gun rights for individuals they encounter who are actively psychotic.

 

Psychotic symptoms, particularly paranoid delusions, are strongly associated with violence.  Police officers could be trained to reliably recognize these symptoms.  Putting the power to remove gun rights in the hands of police rather than health care professionals would eliminate any disincentive to seeking treatment.

 

The Navy Yard shooting illustrates.  Aaron Alexis’s obvious paranoid delusions were memorialized in a police incident report just weeks before he lawfully purchased one of the firearms used in the shooting.  He would not have been on New York’s no-guns list because no health care professional had detected the problem.  Alexis is not alone: in 2011, 40% of those with serious mental illness did not receive treatment.