(Photo: WSJ)
Should a one-time commitment to a mental health facility result in the permanent revocation of one’s Second Amendment rights? According to the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, maybe not.
The Court ruled in a divided 10-6 decision that the mental health portion of the Gun Control Act of 1968 may be unconstitutional. The section in question bans anyone from owning a firearm “who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been committed to a mental institution” involuntarily. The problem, according to the court, is that the law places no time limit on the gun restrictions.
“None of the government’s evidence squarely answers the key question at the heart of this case: Is it reasonably necessary to forever bar all previously institutionalized persons from owning a firearm?” Judge Julia Smith Gibbons asked in her majority opinion.
The suit was originally brought in 2011 by a 74-year-old Michigan man named Clifford C. Tyler. Tyler was placed in a mental institution in 1986 after his wife ran away with another man and filed for divorce. The experience, according to court documents, left him “emotionally devastated.” The court committed him to a mental health facility for no more than 30 days, and he was released within four weeks.
See Also: Appeals Court: Non-Serious Convictions Do Not Permanently Erase Right to Keep, Bear Arms
Since then he held a job for nearly two decades, remarried, and passed a psychological evaluation in 2012. Doctors noted that Tyler’s response to his divorce was a “brief reactive depressive episode,” but he has shown no signs of depression for the last thirty years.
Despite this evidence, Tyler still found himself on the prohibited persons list when he tried to purchase a firearm in February 2011. His attempts to appeal the background check results failed, and he sued the U.S. attorney general and his local sheriff in Hillsdale County, Mich., in 2012.
A federal trial court dismissed his lawsuit, so Tyler appealed to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, according to The Wall Street Journal. Now the case is set to go back to the District Court in Michigan.
It’s unclear how Tyler will fare as his case moves forward, but gun proponents are hoping the court will acknowledge the non-static nature of mental illness. As Circuit Judge David William McKeague noted in his opinion, “Mental illness is not static, so it cannot be constitutional to permanently prevent Clifford Tyler from exercising his Second Amendment right without affording him some sort of process to demonstrate that the non-permanent label of ‘mentally ill’ no longer applies to him.”
The WHOLE ’68 GCA -sponsored by the JFK murdering conspirator LBJ IS a horrifically Unconstitutionaly Hitlarian law! And it should be repealed ASAP to restore a concrete foundation for American core Freedoms. Actually could have been dismantled by now had The Duh Duh Duh Donald not been hog tied by the Deep State agenda machinery and had ‘we, the Sheeple’ been considerably more aggressive with politically counter attacking the leftist gun grabbers with legislation rather than immediately caving to important flanking causes like the ‘Hearing Protection Act’ and the Bump Stock bans. Both currently ‘Gone-Girl’. Where this communist congress won’t even consider the bill.
For years myself and others have been fighting against the steady stealthy erosion of our 2nd/A by the mechanism of creating agenda based unlawful incremental law-making which sooner or later will make virtually all relevant citizenry criminals in some form that precludes them from ‘Ever’ again possessing a firearm.
If you are ‘God fearing’ and religiously predisposed you already know according to the teachings of Jesus that It is not only morally reprehensible (and a sin) to punish someone Forever for a mistake made at some unfortunate bad time in life by then permanently prohibiting them from keeping their inalienable right to self protection AFTER THEY HAVE SERVED THEIR TIME AND PAID THEIR DUES, found Redemption and are considered by society to be rehabilitated enough to be placed back in the population again as a law abiding citizen, but it is actually technically AGAINST THE SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND as well!
18 USCC 241-242 applies to All Free law abiding Citizens. They can’t even make their totalitarian laws if it inhibits or cancels our rights already guaranteed constitutionally as citizens. So why do they do it?
That’s obvious to anyone who pays attention to anything other than the game playoffs. IT’S NOW PROVEN, ADDMITTED, AND CLEARLY UNDERSTOOD THAT THE ONLY RATIONALE FOR THEIR RAPID OBSESSIVE NEED FOR MORE AND MORE GUN CONTROL LAWS IS TO EFFECTIVELY DISARM THE MASSES SO THAT THERE COULD NEVER BE ANY FORMIDABLE RESISTANCE TO THEIR FUTURE PLANS FOR TOTAL AUTHORITARIAN CONTROL OVER EVERY PHASE OF OUR LIVES WHILE THEY MILK US LIKE THE CATTLE WE WILL BECOME UNTIL LIFE IS NO LONGER A NOBLE PURSUIT OF LIBERTY AND HAPPINESS, BUT A MISERABLE STRUGGLE JUST TO SURVIVE…WHICH WE WON’T BE ABLE TO DO EITHER IF THEIR LAWS MAK IT ILLEGAL TO EVEN PROTECT OURSELVES ANYMORE BECAUSE WE ARE ALL CRIMINALS IN SOME WAY OR ANOTHER. AND AFTER THE EX-CRIMINALS ARE ALREADY TOTALLY BANNED FROM HAVING GUNS, THE ‘PRE-CRIMMINALLY’ ORIENTED WILL BE SCREENED BY PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING AND ‘ALLLOWED’, OR NOT, PERMISSION WHICH IS ONLY GRANTED BY AUTHORITY USURPED FROM THE PEOPLE. (Already in the Leftist political game plan for new laws coming down the Nazi turnpike as this is written)
But, but but , how do They get away with making these illegal anti-Constitutional laws on the books?
The get away with this because we let them. Instead of immediately jumping on our so-called representatives to really start using then to represent us we sit back and make the huge mistake of trusting them and not paying too much attention until it’s too late. Bec41use Deep State corruption is so pervasive and insidious there is no accountability for them if we don’t watch exactly what they’re doing, or not. So that’s how they get away with making laws against our liberty and even against the statutes like 18 -241-242
All the smug Conservatives were elated when Trump won and ‘we’ controlled all the entire Congress as well.
Pro-gunners were all set to move to repeal all gun laws and ban lawmakers from making any more.
I warned them not to be so confident because as they gloated the ultra rich Marxists like Soros and Bloomberg and certain nuevo-riche billionaires socialists were steadily pumping ugly huge money into the approaching mid term congressional race. And things can change to quickly to wipe the shit eating grin off your face?
So it is happening again now with less than two years until Trump’s dimming flame could be extinguished.
And if he does lose. This time We ALL lose All our guns.
So it is written…so it shall be.
I feel sure the liar Hillary would not agree with this, but someone who has had a mental or emotional problem due to one of life’s major traumatic events and has recovered should be given a CCP. Some people cause a traffic accident where people are killed or injured and usually do not have a permanent loss of a drivers license.
Hillary has mishandled State Department classified emails and lied about it and still has not provided the subpoenaed emails, Hillary as Secretary of State made no effort to help the four Americans who were killed in Benghazi and later when asked about it before a Congressional committee, stated “JUST FORGET ABOUT THAT !!!” Also, this applies to that incident, BENGHAZI – WE HAD THE TIME, THE SHIPS AND THE PLANES. WE DID NOT HAVE THE LEADERSHIP !!!! Yet Hillary feels that she is qualified to be president of the United States !!!!
Brovo 6th Ckt. court! About time we see the 2nd amendment judgement on the positive side. .If the man’s doctors find him as normal now, he should be given his 2nd amendment right back! If not, then if Clinton is a liar then she is always a liar and can not be running for the Presidency! Come on court and convict the real fake, HC! I hope this statements are apples to apples. Thx
What everybody has backassward, doubtless due to Deep State brainwashing over the years, is the unmitigated reality of “Shall NOT Be Infringed” Which precedes all other subsequent corrupted agenda based manipulations of the legal and judicial system.
They never had the right to deprive a mentally ill person of their Constitutional protection in the first place. PERIOD! Illness, of any kind, is NOT and cannot be, a crime! Behavior or acts of dangerous harm is a crime. Even the Ten Commandments, for those of you disposed as such, are limited to only two effective working commandments when leaned of its proprietary morality control agenda training. These are ‘don’t seriously physically harm anyone, and don’t steal their shit!’
When a person does commit a crime then they themselves are ‘punished’ by getting banned from society for a period of rehabilitation if serious enough and/or paying compensation for their mistakes with fine or hard labor. There is no justification for frivolous notions of crime prevention or public safety–which is proven to be useless and a waste of time and resources. Early Common Law set reasonable objective standards for crime and punishment, and neve allowed for permanent disarmament of the citizen once he had been integrated back into society again as a rehabilitated law abiding citizen once more. If the crime was serious enough to where a person could never weigh the possibility of rehabilitation or represented a severe deadly risk to others if released, then there was a permanent ‘ban’ of the person from peaceful society.
Deprivation of rights, property, etc. as a permanent punishment is an obscenely obvious social aberration that has no other pragmatic purpose except to facilitate totalitarian control and eventual enslavement of a targeted population.
Because of the unconstitutional ’68 GCA which made ex-convicts subject to permanent life-long prohibition from possessing firearms even after serving their time for their mistake and moving on as law abiding citizens, serves as nothing more than the fastest means by which mass gun confiscations can be introduced after enough fiat laws are mandated that make virtually anyone who is able bodied enough to resist a tyrannist government an instant criminal, subject to search an seizure of weapons.
Think about that seriously.
Agreed! Very important case! We need to get this establishment dismantled….get some fresh new blood….clean out the stagnant greedy politicians of the “good old boy” club and get some real folks who are ready to serve. They are using every trick they can think of to whittle away at our 2A rights. Pretty soon they will try to have ALL vets put in an asylum claiming we all have PTSD, just from serving in the military. Then they will claim proxy voting power for all us committed vets and will have their elections in the bag from now on. Vote Trump or this will be a definite possibility!!
This IS a very important Case. I had not heard of one of this type before. With the Gov pushing the mental health restriction on vets, mil retirees, Social Security Recipients and many more citizens there must be a accessible way to fight the assignment to a mental health restriction AND a path to get off it.
On the other hand John Hinckley Jr. 35 years “clean” and has been released to the streets full time. I wonder if wants his gun rights restored?