Pay no attention to what the politicians say. Watch how they vote.
Everything else is lip service, theater, and nothing more. Business as usual.
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I can’t even imagine how it feels to hear that if you lost someone in that shooting, or are now struggling with medical bills.
This is my community, and for the record, the lockdown was horrible. EVERYTHING was closed, not just schools and town offices. People who had vaccine appointments couldn’t get them, or needed their prescriptions. Grocery stores were closed, even the 24/7 convenience stores.
The animal shelter and emergency vet were closed.
We were fine, if creeped out, but I imagine it wasn’t so easy for a lot of people.
But, ya, sure, it’s all about “freedom.” 
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Online friend in Maine where this was happening has several young kids and hadn’t slept for days. Was a nervous wreck
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Do you know why a doctor might decide a patient shouldn’t have access to a gun?
Hint: it’s not because they might turn into a mass shooter.
The reason is because someone with a gun is more likely to kill themselves with it.
The next reason is domestic violence.
It’s for their own, and their family’s protection.
Someone going to a mental health specialist has already taken the first step to recognizing they have a problem. While it is possible, I highly doubt that someone going to a mental health professional because the voices in their head are telling them to commit mass murder is going to object to a doctor issuing an order to take their guns away.
But you know who is worried? A gun hoarder, recognizing that maybe they don’t need three AR15s, two AK74s, a handful of Glocks and 10,000 rounds of ammo, and actually these things kinda make them look nutso.
As others have said, this is an unrealistic hypothetical scenario. Duck that! There are real people dying, many many more by their own hand or of a spouse or parent than in flashy mass murders. They are infinitely more important than some hypothetical gun wanker.
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… okay then, how about we turn it around and make everybody get a psych evaluation before purchasing a gun? Then there’d be no stigma 
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Question 1: do you harbor fantasies where you are the lone “good guy with a gun” who can mitigate a crisis? If you answer yes, then no gun for you.
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Other countries treat gun ownership so differently, it’s so disappointing to see how Americans are so flippant over their need to have an unnecessary tool meant to take lives. Like it’s harder to get a car in the US than it is to get a gun, that’s a problem. Preaching to the choir here i know but i really hope views on gun ownership and the responsibilities that come with it change.
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I’m glad your friend and their family are okay.
Yea, it was stressful. It was so quiet, and then every single little noise at night was cause for a freak out. Which, even a deer walking across the yard in Maine in autumn makes a lot of noise.
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No, it’s not.
Text from the amendment as voted on prevents VA funding:
to report a person who is deemed mentally
incapacitated, mentally incompetent, or to be experiencing an
extended loss of consciousness as a person who has been
adjudicated as a mental defective under subsection (d)(4) or
(g)(4) of section 922 of title 18, United States Code,
without the order or finding of a judge, magistrate, or other
judicial authority of competent jurisdiction that such person
is a danger to himself or herself or others.
So it inserts a legal professional into the mix. How are they better qualified to determine mental health than the mental health experts at the VA?
And it says nothing about taking away guns one already owns, it just might hinder buying new guns where background checks are required.
Another take, where Sen. Murphy adds some useful context.
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Since I don’t want to reply to 8 people about roughly the same things:
The recently passed bill is explicitly to correct a perceived problem with the VA: that they are responsible for 98% of the federal referrals to NICS to put someone on the prohibited list, nearly all of whom are for having a fiduciary appointed. Because it’s not that the mental health experts are looking at “is this person a danger to others”, it’s “do they need someone else to manage their finances”, which is an entirely different story, and probably more people fall into that category than you’d think. And this applies even if the person didn’t see a doctor, but instead asked for someone to be appointed as a fiduciary for them (say their child or partner). The text of the passed amendment does vary slightly from the original bill:
“The Secretary may not transmit to any entity in the Department of Justice, for use by the national instant criminal background check system established under section 103 of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (34 U.S.C. 40901), personally identifiable information of a beneficiary, solely on the basis of a determination by the Secretary to pay benefits to a fiduciary for the use and benefit of the beneficiary under section 5502 of this title, without the order or finding of a judge, magistrate, or other judicial authority of competent jurisdiction that such beneficiary is a danger to themselves or others.”.
This maybe because it’s part of a funding bill rather than another type of bill. And that legal professional is a federal judge. It’s the least we can do when revoking someone’s rights: make sure it’s actually being reviewed by a neutral party.
Poster here scoff at the idea that people will try to avoid docs. I have no idea why, since I see it all the time. “I don’t need to go see a doc about this ache in my back”, “I don’t need to see a doc about this pain in my foot”, “I don’t need to see a doc about this abscess in my perineum.” And this is the case even for issues that won’t cause legal problems. Now throw in legal problems, and the fact that for a number of gun owners, it’s part of their identity. Most people don’t voluntarily change their identity. Pilots are also known to avoid seeing docs, especially mental health professionals, because they want to fly, and if they see a doc, they can’t ( Airline Industry’s ‘Silent’ Struggle: Pilots and Mental Health (msn.com)) An aviation college wouldn’t have an FAQ about it if people weren’t avoiding seeking help.
This doesn’t even get into the case of doctors being potentially malicious. How many people in this thread alone are saying that “no one needs a gun”? What happens if the doc a gun owner sees believes that, and that an easy way to take just one more gun off the street is to get a guy committed? Or the cases where someone does seek help, and then get involuntarily committed when the try to leave, even though there’s nothing wrong enough with them to justify that? Free to check in, but not to leave: Patients seeking mental-health treatment in Washington have been held against their will | The Seattle Times
That’s because doctors are cripplingly expensive in the US, not because doctors will take away your guns. It’s a very flimsy analogy and one I’m sure you wouldn’t try making if there were any evidence there were a real problem with that.
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White, male, gun owners are NOT the primary victims of involuntary commitment - that is just NOT a thing. That’s just a fantasy that you’ve cooked up to make entirely justifiable and wildly popular gun control measures seem like oppression. Giving people the right to not be slaughtered in the streets by aggrieved, angry, violent white men is NOT oppression.
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But guns are part of people’s identity! So regulating them is oppressive, just like going after someone’s religion. All we can do is count ourselves lucky that actual murder isn’t part of people’s identity yet, or we would have to legalize that too.
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I mean, butwhatabout the innocent guns… isn’t it the right of men to endlessly make us all afraid of stepping out of line and annoying them, at the threat of death!!! /s
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… clearly such an unjust scenario should be corrected by making sure lunatics committed to psychiatric hospitals can keep their guns
just in case
that is a sensible and on topic thing to suggest 
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It’s not just “eight people”; LOTS of folks here disagree with your opinion.
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You do understand involuntary commitment is a process that involves multiple steps and multiple people? It’s not an easy thing and not something a single doctor can accomplish.
Most emergency detentions done by police only last as long as the psych hospital evaluation. Then the person leaves. And that is IF there is a psych hospital with a bed available. They won’t even do the assessment if the hospital is full. The bar is even higher when all the psych hospitals are full, which is almost always, and the only option is the ER. Any doctor or counselor who is routinely sending police to ED people who don’t end up staying at the hospital is going to have sanctions against their license very quickly.
This idea that a person who isn’t a serious danger can get committed and have their guns taken away is a fantasy.
This is also true. Most of the time, it is women, teens, BIPOC, or queer people who are involuntarily committed. Particularly if it is a white man accusing them of the dangerous behavior. White guy makes threats? Maybe be gets a citation for disturbing the peace. Maybe. Like this guy
Two local law enforcement chiefs told The Associated Press that a statewide awareness alert was sent in mid-September to be on the lookout for Robert Card after the firearms instructor made threats against his base and fellow soldiers. After stepped-up patrols of the base and a visit to Card’s home — neither of which turned up any sign of him — they moved on.
White man with the means makes threats. They try once to find him and give up.
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Even in the realm of “turning a tragic reality into a thought experiment,” I have a hard time reading this argument in good faith.
Doctors are not snatching people’s guns away.
What IS happening is municipalities and states are banning LGBTQ+ and drag events because of some supposed threat, though none has ever been shown. This is happening.
Meanwhile, a white guy with an arsenal is reported a couple times for serious concerns and nothing is done to stop him from doubling our state homicide rate in mere moments.
Your fictitious “malicious doctors” are not the villains here, the real life homicidal murderers with access to automatic weapons are.
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