More than 100,000 veterans lost their gun privileges

Many will read the following and think about the increased suicides in the military. While we know they have weapons, it is an easy jump to conclude if we take their weapons away, they won't kill themselves when they are veterans. The truth is, it didn't do any good at all.

We read the reports of standoffs with police and SWAT teams. There is usually a gun involved and usually the standoff doesn't end well for law enforcement or the veteran.

We read about a troubled veteran ending his/her pain when their body is found and a gun laying on the floor.

The truth is a firearm is just a weapon of choice. Take their guns away and some people think that will be the answer but they just find another weapon to use. Threaten to take their guns away and you'll find veterans staying out of therapy. Would you rather have a veteran with a gun in treatment or one with a gun and no treatment? They don't want to give up their guns for a reason. In combat, a weapon was as much a part of them as their right arm and they knew it would save their lives. They come home feeling the same way in case someone wants to hurt them or their family. That is foremost in their minds, so the thought of them being the one to endanger their own lives or their families is quickly dismissed. There is very little evidence that veterans kill their families compared to the general population and rare considering there are 22.7 million veterans in America as of September 2010.

In Florida alone we have over 1.6 million of them.

FLORIDA
Projected Veteran Population by Year

9/30/2010
Total Veteran Population
1,650,900

Female
140,300

Male
1,510,600

Vietnam Veterans
511,100

What's the answer to all of this? The laws did little to help veterans. Do you think that maybe, just maybe, the answer is to make sure there is no veteran left behind and come up with programs that work instead?

"At least a few hundred people with histories of mental health issues already get their gun rights back each year. The number promises to grow, since most of the new state laws are just beginning to take effect. And in November, the Department of Veterans Affairs responded to the federal legislation by establishing a rights restoration process for more than 100,000 veterans who have lost their gun privileges after being designated mentally incompetent by the agency."

"Larry Lamb, a Vietnam veteran from San Diego who has suffered from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, lost his gun rights and his cache of weapons in 2006 when he was involuntarily hospitalized after his dog’s death left him suicidal. A psychiatrist who examined Mr. Lamb wrote that he “is extremely paranoid with a full-blown P.T.S.D., believing that he is still at war in the active military and he is a personal bodyguard of the president and many senators.”"


"In early 2008, a Superior Court judge in San Diego granted Mr. Lamb’s petition to have his firearms rights restored, after his psychologist testified that he was not dangerous. But the judge, without access to Mr. Lamb’s full medical history, was unaware of a crucial fact: the local Veterans Affairs hospital had placed a “red flag” on Mr. Lamb, barring him from the hospital grounds because he was perceived to be a threat to personnel there."

Some With Histories of Mental Illness Petition to Get Their Gun Rights Back

MICHAEL LUO
Published: Sunday, July 3, 2011 at 6:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, July 3, 2011 at 5:17 a.m.
PULASKI, Va. — In May 2009, Sam French hit bottom, once again. A relative found him face down in his carport “talking gibberish,” according to court records. He later told medical personnel that he had been conversing with a bear in his backyard and hearing voices. His family figured he had gone off his medication for bipolar disorder, and a judge ordered him involuntarily committed — the fourth time in five years he had been hospitalized by court order.

When Mr. French’s daughter discovered that her father’s commitment meant it was illegal for him to have firearms, she and her husband removed his cache of 15 long guns and three handguns, and kept them after Mr. French was released in January 2010 on a new regime of mood-stabilizing drugs.

Ten months later, he appeared in General District Court — the body that handles small claims and traffic infractions — to ask a judge to restore his gun rights. After a brief hearing, in which Mr. French’s lengthy history of relapses never came up, he walked out with an order reinstating his right to possess firearms.

The next day, Mr. French retrieved his guns.
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Get Their Gun Rights Back