No links here, but I’ve been seeing something around the tubez lately that makes me cautious.
The kid who did the elementary school shooting: Seems he was crazy as Zoe on military-grade catnip, right? Okay, well, crazy happens. It’s tragic, but there it is. There are gunbloggers out there screaming, “Don’t take my guns, institutionalize the crazy people!” And despite my own proclivities I’ll go ahead and agree that, rhetoric aside, there certainly are people who for everybody else’s sake really shouldn’t be armed. There are people who shouldn’t even be on their own, for their own sake.
And yet. Who makes that call?
Seriously. Whom do you know, who’s completely trustworthy with that power?
Forced institutionalization has been done, and not only in this country, and everybody knows it. It may actually do some good in some individual cases. But the potential for abuse is blood-curdling.
The commies progressives are right about one thing, you know. Liberty and safety are not always compatible. One of the corollaries of that statement is even more true: Tyranny and safety are NEVER compatible. But by the time you figure that out, it’s too late to go back.
I’d rather go into each of my days armed against the possibility of having to defend myself against something bad, than to fear the protection of a force against which there is no useful defense.
Agreed, and very well said.
I think a good place to start is to make the judgements expire. I’ve got a couple.ideas I’ve kicked into shape. It involves a blind database, so no one person can make that call. It takes a couple different prereq’s to get denied, and a lot to get committed. I’ve got them up.over at my site. Its not actually a bad thing to get people help, but I agree, we need to find ways to limit abuse.
Hi Joel,
a dissenting voice here; I don’t think I can in any way, morally or logically support forced institutionalization, unless someone has already seriously agressed against others.
Here’s why;
I think all here will agree with a “right” to individual self defense – if some individuals are imminently threatening my life, or to cause me serious injury, then I am entitled to use the force necessary to end that threat, whether that consists of a credible counter threat, or, right on up through fingers into eye sockets and destroying hand arm and leg joints, right on up to keeping injecting hot lead into them until they stop crawling towards me.
But, on what basis do we believe that we are justified in harming another in self defence?
The best I can come up with (and I need to read far more Hoppe, Kinsella, Rothbard, and Wendy McElroy than I have done so far), is that we are the exclusive owners of our own minds and bodies.
So long as someone does not aggress against my person or property, or aggress against another who calls for my assistance (in Jefferson’s language; “so long as he neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg”), then I have no basis to aggress against, or coerce them in any way.
I may not like what they are doing, and may seek to persuade them to refrain or seek help, but, if I want my self ownership to be respected, then I must also respect the self ownership of all other individuals.
On that basis, many of our conservative brethren have a logically unsustainable position.
I neither take, nor like drugs, and I’d rather not live next door to a crack house nor a smack house, but, if someone wishes too, hell, they can smoke a whole hayshed full of round bales of whatever.
I’ll confess an interest in gay marriage; I was best man at one, though personally I prefer ladies, Human ones at that, but if men and sheep are in proximity in some remote and mountainous place, and things happen, well, that is their choice…
I had a big argument with one of my longest standing friends a few months back, when a 15 year old English school girl eloped with her 30-ish year old teacher. My friend has teenage daughters, whom he clearly does not want to do something stupid.
I’m not female, and would prefer if a partner of mine did not terminate a pregnancy, but I would not prevent her from doing so, if she wished.
Each of those is a shibolith for “conservatives”, but on what basis can those conservatives claim a “right” for themselves, if they coercively deny others the “right” to engage in none aggressive and hence victimless activities, such as putting certain substances (or organs) into their bodies?
They would deny others self ownership, and the ability to partake in victimless activities
They have therefore opened up the path for other individuals, under the name of “state” to, coercively deny them the “right” to
cont: (email and name are real)
cont;
indulge in activities that others find objectionable.
What then of someone whose mental health is getting a bit, errm unusual?
Sure we can try to persuade them into seeking some “help” or volountarily going somewhere safe, or entrusting their guns, car keys etc, to a trusted party, until they are more stable;
but anything else, anything coercive, simply opens the door to every other creeping act of coercion which might seem like a good idea at the time, where do you draw the line, and how do you stop the continuing creep?
Once the door is open, I don’t think you can, I think the only way is to avoid any coercion, the door must be shut, and must stay shut.
What then if the person with the dodgy mental health tries “going postal”?
At that point, defence against them is justified. My limited understanding of mental illness (an ex whom I lived with for several years has umpteen degrees in psychology) suggests that there are extremely few conditions (if any) where the individual does not have free choice, and understand full well what a gun pointed at their centre of mass means.
Harsh?
I think most mentally ill people would understand that the time had come to get some sort of help, long before it got to that.
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Leading on from the conservative shiboliths;
The prohibitions of alcohol, drugs, selling sex, etc give us our best pictures of what gun prohibition would likely look like (nasty, short and brutish).
Each of those still prohibited activities, has a well established black market network, supplying its customer’s wants.
More is the irony for conservatives, that there is such a strong mutual hatred between them and the people who could best help them make a gun ban unworkable.
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I’ll try to get this into better shape to email it around some gunbloggers. feel free to take it down if you think it will be too helpful to the pro ban critters.
Keith
Who indeed? I imagine you’ve encountered as many anti-gun types who declare that merely _wanting_ to own a gun for _any_ reason is de facto evidence of severe mental illness* (not just conversational/debate rhetoric, but literally) as I have. I’m with Keith: No forced institutionalization except for an actual act of aggression.
And even in that case, I’d say it forced institutionalization should only be in cases where an arbitrator** determines that the offender is an ongoing threat to other people. And the “institutionalization” shouldn’t be for forced mental treatment (if you don’t have a right to your own mind, you have no rights at all except those a “therapist” convinces/drugs/brainwashes/etc you into believing in.
I’m in the “if you can’t trust him with a gun, you can’t trust him out on the street without a keeper” school of thought. Until someone _demonstrates_ through actual actions that he can’t trusted… _trust_. And everyone else keeps their powder dry. This does not preclude concerned family or friends trying to get someone _help_ if they see warning signs.
* My personal favorite was a UK nutcase I trolled on FB a few weeks ago. I finally gave up when he got so wound up that he admitted that _he_ was undergoing mental treatment and medication for, among — dear Bog, so _many_ — other things, violent impulses to hurt himself and others. His argument was that if he couldn’t control himself, neither could anyone else, and wanting a gun is “acting out” with the direct and sole purpose of hurting people. He sounded so over the top that I thought he was pulling my leg at first (and trolled harder in response), but apparently he was for real. So to speak. Most extreme and stereotypical case of projection I ever saw. He was also a self-avowed socialist; go figure.
** Arbitrator, since — for obvious reasons — I’m not exactly comfortable with the decision being made by a guy on the same payroll as the arresting officer, the prosecutor, and the prison staff. Nor by anyone else with a vested financial interest in incarcerating folks (for double-dipping, anyone else recall the judge who was taking — large! — payoffs to sentence minors to a privately owned facility?).
a dissenting voice here; I don’t think I can in any way, morally or logically support forced institutionalization, unless someone has already seriously agressed against others.
If you think you have to dissent here, Keith, I didn’t make myself clear. With the exception of the bit about abortion, a subject on which I’m conflicted, you didn’t say anything I disagree with. I totally wasn’t writing in favor of forced institutionalization, rather the opposite. But in re-reading what I wrote, I can see where I wasn’t as clear as I should have been.
Hi Joel,
I re read your post
My bad
Keith
The logical, ethical and practical solution to a lethal attack is serious injury or death of the aggressor at the hands of the intended victim or his/her legitimate guardians. Involuntary incarceration of any kind is not truly an option for those who practice non-aggression – no matter what the excuse might be.
The self ownership arguments given here are perfect. If self ownership and non-aggression are the first principles, rational people can work out the details among themselves as the need arises through voluntary association.
And no, complete safety is not only incompatible with liberty, it is impossible. Life is risky.
Floating a few ideas, feel free to take sporting shots at the high fliers, please put the low ones out of their misery by pulling their necks.
I’m guessing that Rothbard, Hoppe, Block etc have covered this in a far better thought through form.
Let us assume I have, in my hands, the critter who has just shot up a group of ordinary none aggressive people. I’m preventing it from killing itself.
Assuming that I resist the temptation to dismember the critter, there and then, one joint at a time, in the manner which old timers used to take the tails off lambs…
One traditional option, by passing the state, is to let the loved ones of those the critter killed or injured, choose to either forgive, to seek some form of restitution, or to carry out retribution in the form of vendetta, up to or beyond the level of the critter’s aggression.
I know some individuals who would each take a different one of those options, I’m guessing that relatively few would go the whole way themselves, most of us are naturally neither sadists nor killers, though I’m guessing that the chances of meeting someone who was, would act as a great deterrent for those who can be deterred.
(I believe that most of the critters who do these things are not insane, but merely extremely cold and self centered egotists/narcissists. Lott’s empirical work shows them choosing their targets, locations and tactics to minimise the risk of being stopped, and Lott’s time series analysis shows CCW working to deter them. They aren’t “mad” they have a very clear grasp of how the world works.
The Norwegian one in particular was operating with a very clear understanding of reality – his aim was likely to make a name for himself and perhaps to provoke some anti immigration laws, his method, to punish the Norwegian labour party for its immigration policy, in a way far worse than killing the politicians themselves, he’d kill their loved ones, so the politicians could feel the pain for as long as they live.
would the thought of him being chained alone with the parent of one of his victims who free to take any retribution, rather than giving his speeches in court, have deterred him? who knows?)
I’m not happy about the idea of legitimizing violence after the heat of the moment has passed, vendetta is no longer defense,
I’m not happy with the idea of the critter going free either, it’s done it once, it may well do it again and perhaps more easily the second time.
By it’s action, has it forfeited any protection against retribution?
In Rothbard’s and Hoppe’s vision of an an-cap society, we’d each subscribe to an insurance/defense agency, or at least have the choice of practitioners offering dispute resolution services.
We are not in that society yet, and I guess I should have specified a setting at the start.
I’m one of the lucky ones in England, I’ve often lived in places with population density in single figures per square mile, and while I’ve got a landline for internet, I’m off the power grid at the moment. The joys of a generator when the biodiesel component of the fuel turns to slime and clogs 3 new fuel filters in one evening, it’s a bugger to bleed too…
This is where I am , I guess it’s vaguely similar to your place Joel?
I’ll assume that for whatever reason, going to the “state” is not an option, whether it has collapsed, the roads have washed out or they’ll be blocked with snow for the next ten years…
My nearest village is a hotbed of snitching, bitching socialists living in expensive houses and grassing each other up for whatever petty thing they can, I can’t imagine a tribunal drawn from them, reaching any sort of decision at all. If they can’t pick up the phone to snitch to some part of the state apparatus, they’d be totally lost.
Unfortunately I can’t say any better of many of the local farmers either; the state offers them a forum for a Hobbesian conflict between themselves (and some OPM too), and into the trap they jump.
There are a couple of neighbours, an old retired solicitor, probably into his eighties now, and a couple of the farmers who’ve been in the area for umpteen generations, whom I would trust to hand the critter over to.
What options could they offer the critter which would respect its self ownership, assess its culpability, provide recompense to the relatives of its victims, and if necessary, put the critter in a position in which it would be unable to indulge its murderous ambitions again?
If self ownership is inalienable (sure with dementia, there are problems to be faced), must all of the options offered to the critter be voluntary?
e.g. You can drink the hemlock, or, choose to live the rest of your life chained to wagon tyre and never stray more than 50m from your house, and contribute $x per month to your victims’ families, or, walk out of that door and into the hands of Jones, who will rip you to pieces on the spot.