There are too many jurisdictions where it would be impossible to properly store or maintain seized firearms without damage.

If we need protected from a person who may harm himself or others. Then as others have said, it should be to a local FFL, and LE pays the storage as to discourage long term abuse. Hell...they pay to maintain a storage lot for cars. Second, the burden of proof for alleged danger should fall on the accuser with LE, in a VERY short period of time. Spell it out, 3 days, 2 weeks. Whatever.

If alleged danger is substantiated, then spell out how family of accused can take custody or be compensated. The bar needs to be set very high, or the abuse will soon follow.

Isn't Broward County the same one that traded school safety for Federal dollars and totally punted the response to the shooting that spawned this law?

quote:

Originally posted by indigoss:
When a subject is Baker Acted in Florida, they can be held in the institution for up to 72 hours. Often times they are released before that.

Ok, lets chat about that for a moment. For 72 hours (three days), a person can be legally detained and evaluated under the Baker Act. There is no requirement that I know of whereby they have to be released early. During that three days, they are physically separated from their firearms. My contention is, the government should be 'required' to have them evaluated, and if necessary, get them in front of a judge with defense counsel, and adjudicate them mentally unstable such they are found to be a "danger to themselves and/or others', before LE is given any latitude whatsoever to seize firearms.

And I know the argument is going to be that the government would be incapable of moving fast enough to meet the three day Baker Act time frame. To that I say, I do not care one bit. Removal of someone's constitutional rights without their appearing before a judge first (as this law allows LE to do), is unconstitutional, unlawful, and just wrong outright. The bar for LE needs to be set a whole lot higher than this law sets it.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:

quote:

Originally posted by indigoss:
When a subject is Baker Acted in Florida, they can be held in the institution for up to 72 hours. Often times they are released before that.

Ok, lets chat about that for a moment. For 72 hours or three days, a person can be legally detained and evaluated. There is no requirement that I know of whereby they have to be released early. During that three days, they are physically separated from their firearms. My contention is, if the government can't have them evaluated, and if necessary, get them in front of a judge with defense counsel, and adjudicate them mentally unstable such they are considered a danger to themselves and/or others, then and only then should government have the latitude to seize weapons (not ammo in my book).

And I know the argument is going to be that the government would be incapable of moving fast enough to meet the three days Baker Act time frame, but I do not care one bit. Remove of someone's constitutional rights without appearing before a judge first as this law allows LE to do, is unconstitutional, unlawful, and wrong outright. The bar needs to be set a whole lot higher than this law sets it.

Yep! It all comes down to government working quickly and competently .....it doesn’t so here we are. I try not to fuck people and tell them how to avoid the problem. The police are not exempt which seems to be forgot about.

Before saying what I want to say in this post, I need to make it very clear that I, a Florida resident, do not like this law, nor do I agree with the seizure in the event that precipitated this whole discussion.

With that disclaimer, I would like to present an aspect of this, for discussion and comment.

After every tragic event like the horrible shooting at the Pulse nightclub, or the Parkland school, both of which happened here in Florida, we have two predictable reactions:

1. The anti-gun contingent starts screaming about "common sense gun control," and
   
   
2. The pro-Second Amendment people (that includes most of us on this forum) state, emphatically, that a gun is just a collection of parts. A gun does not have free will. We state that the person using the gun is the problem and in many (most?) cases there were clear indications that the person was a threat to self or others, and the authorities blew their opportunity to intervene.

Well, in this case, the authorities looked at the situation and decided to intervene.

We can't have it both ways. We state, after these tragedies, that the signs were there and there should have been intervention. Here is a case where there was intervention and we don't like it.

What is the right answer? I don't know. I don't think anybody knows. Solomon died a long time ago, back in the Old Testament days.

For the record.

I would rather be Nemo, swimming in an ocean of sharks, than be safe, in someone's desktop fishbowl, and dependent upon them for fresh water, food and whatnot.

Sharks, ocean, everyday, and the freedom to navigate my existence...

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
We can't have it both ways. We state, after these tragedies, that the signs were there and there should have been intervention. Here is a case where there was intervention and we don't like it.

I can't and won't attempt to speak for others here, but its not LE involvement in this particular case that is the issue for me, but rather, how that involvement/interaction occurs. Its clear from the 60 some interactions Nikolas Cruz had with multiple government agencies over a few years that government could have, and should have, done what was needed to prevent him from having a gun in the first place, or to remove it from him if he had acquired one. Again, the issue for me is how that process occurs so that rights and freedoms are not walked all over, and that government ends up with a set of laws they can use against almost anyone for almost any reason. Clearly there is a need to develop a means to identify and legally restrict people who should not have firearms from possessing them. But the current Florida law, created for the sole reason of quieting the hordes of liberals screaming for government to "do something", doesn't adequately lay out a process or ground rules to insure this occurs with the person's rights and freedoms taking precedent.

Government shouldn't be allowed to change the rules of the game and infringe on everyone's rights just to offset their own incompetence and inadequacies.

quote:

Here is a case where there was intervention and we don't like it.

Ummm, no. This is not an intervention. It is an abuse of power. This whole tragedy was due to government incompetence. And somehow people feel giving more power to the same incompetent body is the answer? Not for me. PLENTY of signs were ignored by law enforcement. PLENTY of chances to get the shooter in front of a judge before he went off. And the government FAILED. So now due to that failure I have to give up my rights? No friggin' way. How many lives could have been saved if those incompetent cowards in the sherrifs office had simply done their job? So because they are failures I need to sacrifice my due process? Ridiculous.

I have never said "we need to do something" after an event like this. Know why? When the story finally comes out it will show that it was 100% preventable but wasn't due to failures in government. Giving more power to government is NEVER, EVER, the answer.

quote:

Originally posted by mbinky:

quote:

Here is a case where there was intervention and we don't like it.

Ummm, no. This is not an intervention. It is an abuse of power. This whole tragedy was due to government incompetence. And somehow people feel giving more power to the same incompetent body is the answer? Not for me. PLENTY of signs were ignored by law enforcement. PLENTY of chances to get the shooter in front of a judge before he went off. And the government FAILED. So now due to that failure I have to give up my rights? No friggin' way. How many lives could have been saved if those incompetent cowards in the sherrifs office had simply done their job? So because they are failures I need to sacrifice my due process? Ridiculous.

I have never said "we need to do something" after an event like this. Know why? When the story finally comes out it will show that it was 100% preventable but wasn't due to failures in government. Giving more power to government is NEVER, EVER, the answer.

I posted last night (and deleted) that many states, including Kentucky, have been doing this very thing for years. And the streets haven't run red with the blood of corruption, or misuse. I deleted it because of the obvious reactions of the echo chamber.

When we say "we don't need more regulation, just enforce the laws on the books" after each and every tragedy, it is evident that we don't mean it in these threads. Because there is a potential that their *might* be the chance for corruption, so we nit pick every law that has to do with these instances. We are never happy.

I guess I probably should not say this, but BATF is actively flagging people that are committed to mental institutions as prohibited people in NICS. Because this could happen to anyone? Family could make statements to get the person picked up by the cops, cops agree the person is a danger to self/others, psychiatrist agrees danger to self/others, and second psychiatrist agrees at the mental hospital. Each step would have to be in it together for this to happen to you. And the "Q" pretty much does not commit people to state mental unless they say "I AM GOING TO KILL.." myself or others.

Guys, the ones that believe that this could happen to just anyone, probably do have some danger of this happening to them. 1) It would take a massive conspiracy. 2)They are going have to build more institutions before the conspiracy can work. They always run at or near max capacity at state hospitals. Or, they have legitimately got mental issues and are a danger to themselves/others.

These threads run on raw emotion, just like the gun controllers operate on, and there is little or no sense to be made of them. The guys in this thread probably have a MUCH greater chance of getting their guns removed by LE by a mad woman filing a false EPO, than they do the mental health process. THAT should scare and concern people, but it never gets but barely a whisper.

This is not a new concept. In Florida if you are subject to an Injunction for Protection against domestic violence or stalking, by court order you are prohibited from possessing or buying firearms or ammunition. Due process is afforded in the injunction process. This new law is an injunction process with due process afforded. The order is signed by a judge. Yes there is a potential for abuse which is true of all legal action. But for those of us who have had to deal with dangerous loonies with guns this is a valuable tool. The alternative is to shrug and walk away and say there's nothing we can do until he commits a crime.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
I deleted it because of the obvious reactions of the echo chamber.

Si.

There's a judicial "check" in the initial seizure of firearms in the FL law, and an even more strenuous requirement ("clear and convincing evidence") at the second stage.

These requirements don't lend themselves to arbitrary confiscation.

The problem with "common sense" gun laws is the people who push for them, draft them and eventually vote them into existence don't seem to have or use any common sense.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:

quote:

Originally posted by mbinky:

quote:

Here is a case where there was intervention and we don't like it.

Ummm, no. This is not an intervention. It is an abuse of power. This whole tragedy was due to government incompetence. And somehow people feel giving more power to the same incompetent body is the answer? Not for me. PLENTY of signs were ignored by law enforcement. PLENTY of chances to get the shooter in front of a judge before he went off. And the government FAILED. So now due to that failure I have to give up my rights? No friggin' way. How many lives could have been saved if those incompetent cowards in the sherrifs office had simply done their job? So because they are failures I need to sacrifice my due process? Ridiculous.

I have never said "we need to do something" after an event like this. Know why? When the story finally comes out it will show that it was 100% preventable but wasn't due to failures in government. Giving more power to government is NEVER, EVER, the answer.

I posted last night (and deleted) that many states, including Kentucky, have been doing this very thing for years. And the streets haven't run red with the blood of corruption, or misuse. I deleted it because of the obvious reactions of the echo chamber.

When we say "we don't need more regulation, just enforce the laws on the books" after each and every tragedy, it is evident that we don't mean it in these threads. Because there is a potential that their *might* be the chance for corruption, so we nit pick every law that has to do with these instances. We are never happy.

I guess I probably should not say this, but BATF is actively flagging people that are committed to mental institutions as prohibited people in NICS. Because this could happen to anyone? Family could make statements to get the person picked up by the cops, cops agree the person is a danger to self/others, psychiatrist agrees danger to self/others, and second psychiatrist agrees at the mental hospital. Each step would have to be in it together for this to happen to you. And the "Q" pretty much does not commit people to state mental unless they say "I AM GOING TO KILL.." myself or others.

Guys, the ones that believe that this could happen to just anyone, probably do have some danger of this happening to them. 1) It would take a massive conspiracy. 2)They are going have to build more institutions before the conspiracy can work. They always run at or near max capacity at state hospitals. Or, they have legitimately got mental issues and are a danger to themselves/others.

These threads run on raw emotion, just like the gun controllers operate on, and there is little or no sense to be made of them. The guys in this thread probably have a MUCH greater chance of getting their guns removed by LE by a mad woman filing a false EPO, than they do the mental health process. THAT should scare and concern people, but it never gets but barely a whisper.

I understand how a person on the inside can have your perspective. You have first hand experience with the system and some control. You have the luxury of knowing the character of those who make the decision to act. You have likely experienced interaction with those who should not ever be armed. I've no doubt your understanding is right. You trust the system because you know those running it are trustworthy.

If I could ask you to see it from an average citizen's POV, perhaps it would add clarity. I don't trust gov't nor can I know which unknown agents are trustworthy. I can only make those assessment on what I've seen, the VERY little power I have and the knowledge there are those concealed in gov't who are tyrants and use their position to remove liberty from the innocent. When I see a new law I look for the ways it will be abused. I can't help it. It is a form of self defense.

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:... A family member should take possession of any and all weapons and ammo and the extent of police involvement should be to make sure that the guns are properly handled...

I only read the new statute quickly, but I do believe there is a provision for this, that a third party can take possession of the weapons.

In Ohio, the test has several avenues;
Dangerous to Self or others
Would benefit from treatment in a psychiatric facility

The determination may be made by a Doc, a "Health Officer", usually someone with advanced training in a community mental health center that does not have a doc present all the time,
or a Law Enforcement Officer.

It's called a "pink slip" because it is, well, pink. And it is good for a 72 hour hold. After that, a Probate Court Judge makes the decision after a thorough psychiatric examination.
Persons pink slipped get their guns back, after they are determined to fit in neither category.sooner or later.
Those probated as psychiatricaly impaired are usually hospitalized, fall unde the appropriate box on the 4473, and may never have a gun again. Ohio has been doing this for at least 40 years that I know of.

This is more about the Baker Act than Nikolas Cruz.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...m_term=.3a52ab5f3d4e

Mental-health counselors twice advised against committing Nikolas Cruz before school shooting, records show

By Tim Craig March 19 at 6:00 AM

TAMPA — Dan Huffy said his 11-year-old daughter was joking when she texted her friends earlier this year: “I’m done with life and what it’s giving me,” she wrote.

The message was a dramatic take on the popular Netflix series “13 Reasons Why,” about a teenager who commits suicide. That evening, sheriff’s deputies took away the honor student in a patrol car, and for the next five days, Huffy said, his daughter was locked in a crisis stabilization center, forced to sleep in a swivel chair and undergo hours of questioning from a psychologist.

“They wouldn’t even let her mother speak to her,” Huffy said, adding that his daughter is now wary of hospitals. “I know it sounds exaggerated and unbelievable, but these cases are real.”

Huffy’s daughter is among the nearly 200,000 Floridians involuntarily committed to mental-health facilities annually under a unique state law known as the Baker Act. School officials in Parkland, Fla., sought to use the same law for Nikolas Cruz, the 19-year-old accused of killing 17 students and employees there last month, records show. But, more than a year before the massacre, a mental-health counselor told them Cruz didn’t need to be detained.

The Baker Act allows law enforcement, school counselors and medical personnel to petition for someone to be institutionalized for 72 hours who is perceived as a danger to themselves or others — without their permission or, in the case of children, without their parents’ consent.

[Red flags: A timeline of the accused Parkland shooter’s troubled path ]

While on the books since 1971, the law has been thrust into the middle of the national gun debate after a gunman killed 17 high school students and staffers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Cruz, who is facing the death penalty for 34 counts of premeditated murder and attempted murder, had said he wanted to buy a gun and had written racist messages, according to state records.

The National Rifle Association and other gun-rights advocates have said the shooting was a result of law enforcement’s inadequate use of the Baker Act, rather than Cruz’s access to high-powered firearms.

“Sending messages, telling other students that he was going to murder them and he was going to kill him, I would think certainly would qualify under a Florida state statute for you to have Baker Acted him,” NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch said to Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel during a CNN forum on gun violence last month.

In 2013, a Broward County sheriff responded to Cruz’s Parkland home after his mother, Lynda, reported she had been thrown against the wall after taking away his Xbox. Mental-health clinicians said Cruz did not need to be held under the Baker Act, according to sheriff office records.

Three years later, a school resource officer reported Cruz had ingested gasoline in a suicide attempt and was cutting himself.

According to the Associated Press, records in Cruz’s criminal case show that the officer and two school counselors had decided at that time that Cruz should be involuntarily committed.

It’s not clear from records why mental-health counselors advised against detaining Cruz, who had been diagnosed with ADHD and depression, had said he wanted to buy a gun and written racist messages, and was on medication and seeing a therapist, according to state records.

Neither the counselor nor his previous employer, Henderson Behavioral Health, returned phone calls seeking comment.

According to data compiled by the University of South Florida, there were 194,354 Baker Act examinations in the 2016-2017 fiscal year, a 111 percent increase over the past 15 years. About 32,000 of the cases involved children, a quarter of whom were referred through the school system, according to USF’s Baker Act Reporting Center.

[‘I’m constantly asking: Why?’ When mass shootings end, the painful wait for answers begins. ]

In response to Cruz’s rampage, Florida lawmakers this month approved a modest expansion of the Baker Act’s power, allowing law enforcement to take away a person’s firearms if they’re admitted for psychiatric evaluation. But some lawmakers are pressing for a state commission to thoroughly vet how it is being applied.

“I don’t know if there needs to be a whole rewrite, but it needs to be fixed,” said Florida Rep. David Silvers (D), who represents Palm Beach County. “I have a feeling if [the Baker Act] was properly utilized . . . maybe Mr. Cruz would not have been able to buy a gun and murder 17 people.”

Throughout Florida, there are deep divisions about whether the Baker Act saves lives or whether it represents the state’s Band-Aid approach to a mental-health system, which has endured repeated budget cuts over the past decade.

“The Baker Act doesn’t work in every circumstance,” said Charlotte Melton, vice president of the Orlando-based Mental Health Association of Central Florida. “When you try to Baker Act someone too early, and they don’t qualify, or discharge them without a treatment plan, people end up frustrated.”

People referred for treatment under the Baker Act are taken to one of 127 approved facilities across the state. The largest intake center, Gracepoint in Tampa, processes more than 1,000 Baker Act patients each month.

Resembling a sprawling office park, Gracepoint includes 60 short-term beds for adults and 28 for children scattered across several buildings.

In the adult wing, patients huddle on reclining chairs as they wait up to 24 hours to see a therapist. After that initial evaluation, about 40 percent of patients are released because it has been determined they do not pose a threat to themselves or others. Those believed to be a threat are admitted, a designation that allows Gracepoint to begin administering psychiatric care, including medication, to patients.

Last week, one patient in the adult wing had been admitted because he said he believed he was Tupac Shakur and wanted to kill God. Another had texted her girlfriend a photograph of a noose hanging from the ceiling and made references to killing herself.

On an outdoor patio, a therapist was leading a group of patients in breathing exercises. Inside, another therapist was leading patients in mind-bending word games.

“Sometimes patients are so much in their head, thinking so much, that they don’t have time to think about positive things,” said Camilo Rosario, 29, a Gracepoint behavioral health technician, noting that keeping a patient both mentally and physically active is a crucial part of the stabilization process. “This gives them a warm-up to think a little bit more.”

[Florida shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz: Guns, depression and a life in trouble ]

Nearby, the children’s wing was housing patients ranging from 5 to 17 years old.

One of the 17-year-old patients was admitted after he cut his wrist following a fight with his mother. A 6-year-old patient was there because he had placed a belt around his neck during an extended outburst.

Derek McCarron, the director of Gracepoint’s Children’s Services, said clinic should be viewed as an “an emergency room for mental health.”

“We just get them started on their treatment and give them a really good after-plan, and that is really where long-term help is going to begin,” McCarron said.

If parents and caregivers are unable or unwilling to follow up on treatment plans, it’s unlikely that a patient will see marked improvement in their mental health, McCarron said.

Florida lawmakers have repeatedly slashed funding for mental-health programs, which advocates say created gaps in treatment options available after crisis care.

When adjusted for inflation and population growth, Florida this fiscal year will spend about $254 million less on mental-health services than it did during the 2000-2001 fiscal year, according to an analysis by the Florida Council for Community Mental Health, an advocacy group. There are now less than a half-dozen publicly funded centers providing intermediate housing and transitional care for individuals released from crisis centers, according to advocates.

Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, secretary of the Florida Sheriffs Association, said he has seen individuals who have been Baker Acted as many as 15 times.

“When they are released, they are just given a card (with follow-up information) and they just throw away the card . . . and then are back again,” he said. “And it just gets worse and worse until it finally blows.

The Florida Department of Children and Families noted the state will spend more than $1 billion on substance abuse and mental-health services this year. But David Frady, a spokesman for the agency, said the state has shifted away from transitional facilities in favor of “multidisciplinary” and individualized recovery plans based on feedback from doctors, therapists, social workers and guardians.

“The team completes a variety of assessments to identify the resident’s treatment needs and preferences and develops an individualized recovery plan that outlines specific goals, objectives and services needed to overcome discharge barriers and return to the community,” Frady said.

[Opinion: Don’t deny the link between serious mental illness and violence ]

There are success stories. Barbara Conover, 49, credits the Baker Act with saving her life.

After Conover and her husband lost their jobs in the spring of 2016, she was overcome by depression, anxiety and alcohol addiction.

In August of that year, her teenage son found her passed out on the floor after she ingested all her antidepressant medication, about 270 pills.

Over the next year, Conover was in and out of Tampa-area behavior health units.

Because she was uninsured, she would check herself into crisis stabilization units just to receive free medication. But after Conover’s two-week stay at Gracepoint in June 2017, she was homeless and sleeping in her car. Scared and alone, Conover again attempted suicide.

“I, just in my car, vomited (for two days), and on Monday, I knew I had to find a place live,” Conover said. “So I went to Metropolitan Ministries and they were like, ‘You need to be Baker Acted.’ ”

After that three-week stay, Conover said clinic staff worked with her to provide better after-treatment services, including an apartment.

“If more people knew this was out there to help,” Conover said, “there would be fewer people to go off the deep end.”


Mark Berman and Wesley Lowery contributed to this report.

so I need to try to catch up here

let me see if I get this right

the government and its agencies utterly failed at every single step

they were drawn a roadmap and couldn't navigate it

they had warnings and failed to heed them

they had people in place who shit their pants when it came time to do their job

and yet, we need more laws by the same collection of incompetents who failed WE THE PEOPLE in the first place...

seems to me that the wrong collection of people are being targeted

^^^^^^^^(applause) (applause)

Great summary and I would add that advocates for more laws are eager to punish lawful firearm owners with unrelated restrictions, even when poorly written or unrelated which would have done nothing to prevent this incident, and they have no problem wit dat.

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

-Ben Franklin

These changes to Florida law won't make that state's government or LEO departments more competent, more honest, or more effective. It will only create more problems for good people, way over in any proportion to any good that it possibly could do IF governments were more competent, more honest, or more effective. Lazy, dishonest, and incompetent people just exist, and nothing will ever change that. Hire bad or elect bad, you will get bad results every time. To believe otherwise is stupidity, or as some have noted, the definition of insanity. Am I being overly cynical ?