Should Gun Restrictions Be Placed on Veterans With PTSD?

If they didn't forget about the Joshua Omvig Suicide Prevention Act, this could have been a good story. Pay close attention to pages 628-630

Should Gun Restrictions Be Placed on Veterans With PTSD?
New York Times
By THOMAS JAMES BRENNAN
April 26, 2013

When Phillip Barker received the official report from the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2008, it said he suffered from homicidal ideations of a passive-aggressive nature. It also said that he had an alcohol dependency. That he experiences anxiety, sleeplessness, hypervigilance and nervous tics as part of his post-traumatic stress disorder, diagnosed in 2007 after his honorable discharge from the Marine Corps. And that he has flashbacks from his deployment to Falluja, Iraq, in 2004.

Mr. Barker also owns a pistol.

After the Newtown, Conn. massacre last December and the killing of the former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle at a Texas shooting range in February, the media, President Obama, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California and even David Keene, president of the National Rifle Association, have suggested that people with mental illnesses, which could include veterans with combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder, be subject to stricter gun restrictions. Many states already have laws saying that people who have mental illnesses or have been committed to mental institutions cannot purchase or own firearms.

But the issue is deeply contentious for many reasons, and not just because it involves gun control and the civil rights of veterans. For mental health professionals and veterans organizations, it also raises questions about the nature of post-traumatic stress disorder and its relationship to violent behavior.

Dr. Eric Elbogen, a clinical psychologist with the Department of Veterans Affairs in Durham, N.C., declined to comment on Mr. Barker’s case. But he said that although PTSD is a mental disorder, decisions on whether to restrict the gun rights of people who have received a diagnosis of PTSD should be individualized. The reason, he said, is that not all people with the disorder are violent.
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