Articles by Herschel Smith

KXAN.com:

ROUND ROCK, Texas (KXAN) — A Texas Ranger stationed in Austin exercised “poor judgment” in an incident where he pulled over and pointed his gun at a driver who flipped him off in traffic according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.

During the incident Round Rock police rushed to an intersection along Interstate 35 after a call for help from the driver who was on the phone with a 911 operator saying someone is trying to pull him over in an unmarked vehicle.

“It’s a white pickup truck and the guys wearing a suit. And he brake checked me and I went around him on the right side, gave him the finger, and he turned all these lights and sirens on”, said the motorist to the 911 dispatcher.

Moments later, before officers arrive, the man following the driver points a gun at him after they stop at the red light.

Eventually, Round Rock police show up and discovered the man who pulled the gun is Texas Ranger Michael Smith, driving an unmarked DPS pickup truck.

The driver, David Vancuran, was fuming and told officers he wanted to talk to the Ranger’s boss, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety. “I want the director of DPS down here to talk to this guy, he doesn’t deserve to be doing that. And then when I ask him who he is, all I see is a gun, said Vancuran.

Ranger Smith claims Vancuran almost crashed into his truck as traffic in front of him slowed. “He goes around me real fast, shoots me the bird, then side swipes my truck”, said Smith.

Ranger Smith tells the investigating officer that he only got out of his truck to talk to the driver, but had to pull out his gun after he fears for his safety. “I get out of the truck, I demand he get out. He puts the car in reverse. I draw my gun.”

The state issued pickup truck is not equipped with a dash camera, so it’s the Ranger’s word against the driver in this incident last February.

But KXAN has also obtained evidence Ranger Smith was not exactly telling the truth about when he pulled his pistol according to a crucial part of the 911 call in which Smith is heard screaming and banging on the car.

In a written statement sent via email, the agency contradicts Smith’s own version of exactly when he pulled out his gun. “While exiting the vehicle, the Ranger placed his weapon in a low, ready position, due to a perceived threat, ” said the agency in a statement emailed to KXAN.

DPS also wrote: “Our employee acted inconsistent with policy, exercised poor judgement, and conducted himself in an unprofessional and discourteous manner – all of which are unacceptable…The department has taken corrective action with this employee regarding the policy infractions.

The agency also did not respond to questions about the differing versions of when Ranger Smith drew his weapon during the stop.

Texas Department of Public Safety responds:

The traffic stop initiated by the Ranger was lawful; however, his actions failed to reflect the high standards expected of our employees.

On February 7, a Texas Ranger attempted to stop an individual who was driving aggressively, including nearly sideswiping the Ranger’s vehicle on I-35 in the Georgetown area. The Ranger was driving an unmarked police unit and attempted to make the traffic stop by activating his emergency lights, and subsequently contacted DPS Communications to request Highway Patrol assistance. The driver ultimately pulled over on the I-35 frontage road in Round Rock. While exiting the vehicle, the Ranger placed his weapon in a low, ready position, due to a perceived threat, namely believing the car was being placed in reverse. Round Rock Police Department subsequently arrived on scene, and the driver was ultimately released with no additional enforcement action taken. The Ranger immediately reported the incident to his supervisor.

It’s morphed from sideswiped my car to nearly sideswiped my car.  So let me get this straight.  You (Texas Ranger) were apparently tailgating somebody, they didn’t like it, brake checked you, and you unholstered your weapon and stopped him in a rage.

And the stop was “lawful” according to your superiors.  And I would have been charged with brandishing a deadly weapon, disturbing the peace, reckless driving, and probably assault with a deadly weapon had I done that.

Okay.  Got it.  Because LEOs are better and have more rights than me.

Newsday:

Head of the Harbor Village officials are considering allowing researchers to use dart guns to treat deer in an experimental contraception program intended to shrink the population there.

Residents have complained the roughly 600 deer living in and around the densely wooded North Shore village feast on gardens and treat expensive landscaping like “an open salad bar,” as one person wrote in response to a village survey on residents’ experiences with the animals. Residents also worried about deer colliding with vehicles on the village’s winding, unlit roads, and the animals’ role as hosts for the ticks that carry Lyme disease.

New York State’s preferred method of deer population control is hunting, which many village residents reject as inhumane. So trustees decided last year to pursue nonlethal means of population control and contacted researchers from the Humane Society of the United States and Tufts University exploring use of porcine zona pellucid, or PZP, a substance derived from pig ovaries that uses an animal’s own immune system to prevent pregnancy in wildlife populations.

Head of the Harbor would become the second community on Long Island, after Fire Island, to host the work, which researchers estimate will cost $242,215 and take place over six years. The money would come from the village, foundations and private donors.

Eric Stubbs, a member of the village’s Deer Management Advisory Committee and an economist who commutes by train to New York City, said he sees deer on his morning drive to the station about once a week. “They’re a significant presence,” he said.

Most of his neighbors are eager for the project to start, he said. “It has implications not just for us, but for towns all over Long Island . . . It’s one of the few things where you can get majority support,” he said.
Researchers use dart guns to dose female deer with PZP or sedatives so they can be injected by hand with the substance.

“What we’re hoping to do long-term is offer a solution for wildlife managers to use for areas where hunting or lethal means are not feasible or kosher with the community,” said Kali Pereira, HSUS senior wildlife manager.

HSUS dart guns – Pereira called them dart projectors – are similar to paintball guns and powered by carbon dioxide, she said. Only trained researchers use them, she said.

But the same law that effectively outlaws hunting in Head of the Harbor could keep the researchers from their work. It bans discharge of most projectile weapons including those, like the researchers use, that are gas- or air-powered.

“The activity they’re seeking to import into the village does not comply with their own local law,” said Assemb. Tom McKevitt (R-East Meadow), a lawyer who specializes in municipal law.

No-discharge laws are common across Long Island, he said. Although Head of the Harbor’s code makes exceptions for police and for non-officers who discharge a weapon “provided it is reasonably necessary for the protection of life or property,” McKevitt said it would be “a stretch” to apply that clause to the defense of perennials from hungry deer. Violators face fines of up to $250 and jail time.

You Yankees are so janky.  You’re planning to spend a quarter of a million dollars to neuter deer in order to do what hunting has done for decades so well – control the herd population.

Oh well, since money grows on trees this is a viable option for you, I guess. And hey, at least you aren’t sending the king’s men into the king’s forests to cull the population because no one else is good enough to do that.

American Spectator:

Gun-rights activists often express the view that Americans will not easily give up their rights to gun ownership even if the laws eventually outlaw — or at least greatly restrict — the freedom of individuals to own firearms. The scenario they depict is bleak but simple: When armed agents come to their doors to confiscate people’s arsenals, some of those people can be expected to fight back.

Advocates further assume widespread public support for private gun ownership and expect prominent Second Amendment organizations and Republican legislators to raise hell whenever gun regulations start approximating confiscation.

The experience in California, in particular, suggests an entirely different scenario.

From what I’ve seen, the public often will support aggressive new restrictions. Gun owners will meekly hand over their weapons to agents. Gun-rights groups will quietly protest, but have little sway. Republican legislators will make things worse as they try to prove their commitment to taking guns out of the hands of “criminals.” The erosion of our fundamental gun rights will take place so slowly that few will protest too much.

The latest example involves Proposition 63, a statewide initiative that mandates background checks for ammunition purchases and prohibits the possession of large-capacity ammunition magazines. The state already banned the sale of magazines that hold more than ten ammo rounds in 2000. As a federal judge explained in a recent ruling, starting July 1, “any previously law-abiding person in California” who owns such a magazine “will begin their life of crime.”

[ … ]

I’ve called this the “infrastructure of confiscation.” Law-enforcement officials are mostly for it, of course. They want to know who owns guns when they are called to a home for a disturbance. “The presence of a legally owned possessed firearm bought to protect the home may get totally innocent people killed by the police who casually use SWAT for drug search warrants especially if they register,” said the late Joe McNamara, the former San Jose police chief and fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

After that tragic Connecticut shooting, the state passed a far-reaching firearms registration law. TV stations reported that gun owners lined up around the block to comply with the new requirements. Of course, that’s so. Most gun owners, myself included, are law-abiding folks, who almost certainly and properly would peacefully follow any new laws that were passed.

Well, he’s certainly right about the infrastructure of confiscation.  Note that if the fedgov knows you have a firearm in the house, any police attention, spurious or not, will most certainly result in danger for you and a dead dog, if you have one.

But as for lining up to turn in weapons, I’m not so sure this analysis is correct.  While some people did, the whole regulatory scheme in Connecticut and New York (SAFE Act) was so onerous that they saw massive non-compliance.  I suspect that the SAFE act will always be used after the fact to add other charges when they have arrested someone for another crime, not for the purpose of door-to-door gun confiscations.

What do you say?  Is this analysis in the American Spectator accurate, or has he missed the boat and failed to understand the resolve of the remaining patriots among us?

Chicago Tribune:

When a 12-year-old kid is arrested with a gun, you can’t blame the child. It’s the parents’ fault.

The child police took into custody Tuesday night after finding him in a West Side alley with a handgun in his possession deserves our compassion. But more than that, he needs help — because his parents aren’t doing their job.

There is so much about this situation that we do not know. We don’t know his mom and dad, and we certainly know nothing about their lives. We don’t know what his home environment is like, whether he even had a hot meal last night.

We don’t know why he was hanging out in an alley at 8 p.m. when he should have been inside perhaps watching TV or reading a book before getting ready for bed. All we know is that he should not have been out there alone, and that his parents should have been paying closer attention.

Police received multiple calls from neighbors in Lawndale about someone in the alley with a gun. When police arrived in the 1800 block of South Kostner Avenue, they found the kid. And when they searched him, they discovered the weapon.

Thirty minutes later, they located his mother. The child was charged as a juvenile with unlawful use of a weapon. The mother went free. Perhaps she should have been charged with neglect.

[ … ]

Perhaps after this, their parents will step up and act like adults. If not, I fear what might happen to these three young boys in the future.

Let’s not stereotypically condemn them to a life of crime. It is possible that they can get on the right track all by themselves. But chances are, without intervention, they will end up in trouble.

[ … ]

None of these kids were born bad. They’re simply exhibiting learned behavior.

That’s what John Dewey would have you believe.  You’ve learned “the gouge” well in college, ma’am.  All it takes is the state to do the right things, turn parents into adults, and then the children will learn the right things rather than the wrong things.

There is no concept of sin, righteousness, volitional choice, or anything that makes a man a man.  He’s just a tabula rasa.  Except not really, and you will always get the remedy wrong when the diagnosis is wrong.

For us, guns are wonderful tools in the right hands with righteous intent, man is sinful from birth and in need of a savior, and the state can’t save anybody, not even itself.  God is sovereign, man is accountable, and His law is as immutable as He is.

What you’re witnessing is the result of the destruction of the family and the replacement of it and God with the state.  Your god will always fail you, ma’am.  You may as well bow down to a wooden totem pole.

ABC13.com:

AUSTIN, Texas (KTRK) —

In less than two months, Texas will enact a new open carry law for knives and swords.

Last week, Gov. Greg Abbott signed House Bill 1935 into law.

Starting Sept. 1, it will be legal for adults in Texas to open carry knives, daggers and swords.

The law bans long knives from being carried into schools, colleges, churches and bars.

Read more about House Bill 1935 here.

Well good, but only sort of.  As I’ve pointed out, every man carries a knife everywhere.  Or at least he should.  But what’s up with this continued prohibition of knives into places of worship?  As if somehow one is safe from wicked men who would do harm while they are worshipping.

In fact, if you ponder for a moment what’s happening in most Christian worship services, you are likely at your most vulnerable, both you and your family.  You are in a crowd, there is limited ingress and egress, your attention is focused somewhere else other than threat assessment, and so on.

It’s the same silliness that pervades lawmakers’ prohibition of guns in worship.  Ignore it, and while open carry of guns is now legal in Texas, we need to continue to make changes in the law obviating the requirement to have a permit at all, and minimizing the number of businesses that post against open carry (I know, I made a recent visit to Texas).  It’s especially bad in Austin.

There is more work to do.  In the mean time, if you live in Texas, carry a large fixed blade knife with you (like a Ka-Bar) and send me a picture whenever this becomes legal.  Or before.

Politico:

The deconstruction of the State Department is well underway.

I recently returned to Foggy Bottom for the first time since January 20 to attend the departure of a former colleague and career midlevel official—something that had sadly become routine. In my six years at State as a political appointee, under the Obama administration, I had gone to countless of these events. They usually followed a similar pattern: slightly awkward, but endearing formalities, a sense of melancholy at the loss of a valued teammate. But, in the end, a rather jovial celebration of a colleague’s work. These events usually petered out quickly, since there is work to do. At the State Department, the unspoken mantra is: The mission goes on, and no one is irreplaceable. But this event did not follow that pattern. It felt more like a funeral, not for the departing colleague, but for the dying organization they were leaving behind.

As I made the rounds and spoke with usually buttoned-up career officials, some who I knew well, some who I didn’t, from a cross section of offices covering various regions and functions, no one held back. To a person, I heard that the State Department was in “chaos,” “a disaster,” “terrible,” the leadership “totally incompetent.” This reflected what I had been hearing the past few months from friends still inside the department, but hearing it in rapid fire made my stomach churn. As I walked through the halls once stalked by diplomatic giants like Dean Acheson and James Baker, the deconstruction was literally visible. Furniture from now-closed offices crowded the hallways. Dropping in on one of my old offices, I expected to see a former colleague—a career senior foreign service officer—but was stunned to find out she had been abruptly forced into retirement and had departed the previous week. This office, once bustling, had just one person present, keeping on the lights.

When Rex Tillerson was announced as secretary of state, there was a general feeling of excitement and relief in the department. After eight years of high-profile, jet-setting secretaries, the building was genuinely looking forward to having someone experienced in corporate management. Like all large, sprawling organizations, the State Department’s structure is in perpetual need of an organizational rethink. That was what was hoped for, but that is not what is happening. Tillerson is not reorganizing, he’s downsizing.

An “organizational rethink.”  He’s shocked to find downsizing.  Shocked.  But was happy to see someone with corporate experience take the helm.  What does he think happens in the corporate world?

This kind of report makes me happy.  I see that Tillerson is draining the swamp and warring against the deep state.  Good for him.  Let me assist just a bit.  Everyone who went to college where they were trained by America-hating Marxists, and everyone who is a political appointee of Obama, just go ahead and turn in your resignations now.

Save us the hassle of rooting you out later.  We might fill the positions, we might not.  Either way, ridding ourselves of people who want to destroy America makes us better, not worse.  So go cry me a river, and market that “experience” in international affairs.  Let me know when you land a job.

NY Post:

A Minneapolis homeowner demanded to know why a cop responding to a burglary call shot her two dogs at point-blank range — after one approached wagging his tail.

Surveillance video shows the unidentified officer with the Minneapolis Police Department walking backwards in a back yard with his gun drawn when a Staffordshire terrier — named Ciroc — walks toward him wagging his tail Saturday night. The cop suddenly fires his pistol, hitting the dog in the jaw before the animal runs off.

“He was wagging his tail,” the dogs’ owner, Jennifer LeMay, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “My dog wasn’t even moving, lunging toward him or anything.”

Just as Ciroc is shot, a second Staffordshire terrier named Rocko darts into the frame, prompting the cop to fire again, striking the dog in the side, face and shoulder before the officer calmly hops a 7-foot wooden fence out of the yard.

The dogs survived, but LeMay says the family is suddenly overwhelmed by the vet bills after the shooting. Ciroc is back home after a $900 vet bill, but still needs up to $7,000 in surgeries at the University of Minnesota. Rocko, meanwhile, returned home late Sunday. Both dogs are emotional support animals prescribed by a doctor for LeMay’s sons, who have severe anxiety, she said.

“My dogs were doing their job on my property,” she told the Star Tribune. “We have a right to be safe in our yard.”

I’ve watched the video.  I’ll embed it below (sometimes that slows page loading).

I know dogs.  This dog was only moderately interested in the goings-on, and was absolutely no danger to anyone.  The cop should be arrested and charged with cruelty to animals and spend time in prison.  I feel compelled to repeat the counsel I’ve given before concerning LEOs and dogs.  First, as to general rules.

Turning now to the dog, there is no moral or legal requirement for expecting me to own beasts that roll over and play dead when a cop comes around. That isn’t what good dogs do. People have dogs in part for self defense. I strongly suspect that the dog wasn’t a danger to the neighbors, and like most dogs, they know the neighbors and are gentle with them, or at least not a mortal danger.

My own 90 pound Doberman can jump a six foot fence, and when threatened (I’ve witnessed it before), she never backs down, but goes after the threat, trips the threat from behind with her gigantic paws, gets underneath the threat, and bites for the neck / thoracic region to choke air. Fortunately when it has been other animals uncommon to the area I stop her since she obey my voice commands immediately.

She is also such a “lovey” dog she wants to climb up in the lap of any neighbor who comes by. Cops are not neighbors. Cops are foreign to the area. Dogs interpret cops as a threat, and sometimes they are right. There is no way to distinguish between cops and anyone else. Dogs don’t do calculus.

Turning now to the cops, they had no intrinsic right to be on another man’s property. Judges may say so, or state regulation may say so, but it just isn’t justifiable morally. No one was being killed or kidnapped. This was a call for loud music.

I have had two exchanges with cops over the last decade that I can recall. Once they wanted to enter my home (not for me, but to discuss someone else), and I mentioned that they were welcome but I should restrain my dog. They said, “great idea – we’ve had some instances of bad interactions and the chief wants us to retreat and let people restrain their dogs.” The second time, a cop wanted my help with someone and Heidi – my dog – happened to be loose and in the driveway. He approached on the road, but didn’t venture too far and stayed 20 or 30 yards away and called for me. I put Heidi up and obliged.

If I had to list a few pointers for cops the list would go something like this:

1. Do not approach another man’s property assuming you have a right to be there. Ask permission first. Get people to restrain their beasts.
2. Assume every man is armed.
3. Assume every home has a big dog.
4. Unholster your weapon only as a last resort.
5. Do not waste your time making stupid stops. Stopping someone for a broken running light is a stupid stop when you can be shutting down gang activity. There is another regulatory scheme to ensure that the broken running light gets fixed, i.e., car inspection. Be loath to interact with men when they are in a confined space such as a car or truck. You can’t tell what they are doing, and they can’t tell what you are doing. Unless you are an outstanding communicator, your commands are likely to be misunderstood or misinterpreted, or worse yet, incomplete and unclear or even contradictory like in the case of Castile (show me your ID but don’t move).
6. Most dogs are not “pure bred killers.” Most dogs take on the personality of their owner and only want to protect their owner. Understand this. Work with it, not against it. Use it to your advantage. Learn to work with animals, farm animals included. Train animals if you need to in order to gain this experience.

Next, I’ll turn to animals themselves and what LEOs should know.  I only have to do this because men won’t be men and train their sons to handle animals.  Sadly, in the main this is missing from American culture today, and America treats animals more and more like Muslims treat animals.  I consider Muslim treatment of dogs and other animals to be cowardly and immoral, backward and even barbaric.

I have fallen off, been thrown off, bitten, run over, kicked, and just about anything that can happen on or around a horse.  I have ridden horses all day long, and I do mean all … day … long, and gotten on to do it again the next day.  And the next day.  And the next day.  I have fed them, herded them, doctored them, and assisted them to mate.  If you’ve never witnessed horses mating first hand (and I’m not talking about watching the Discovery Channel), it can be a violent affair.  I’ve ridden with saddles and then also (in my much younger years) bareback over mountain tops along narrow trails while running the herd).  The hardest ride was bareback and (on a dare) without a bridle, only the halter.

From the age of fourteen and beyond into my early twenties, I worked weekends and summers at a Christian camp above Marietta, South Carolina named Awanita Valley (and Awanita Ranch in Traveler’s Rest).  We trained and trail rode horses, fed them and cared for them, hiked the trails and cleared them of snakes and yellow jacket nests (have you ever been on a horse when it came up on a yellow jacket nest?).

When we weren’t doing that, we were cutting wood, hauling supplies, digging ditches, and baling hay.  My boys did the same thing, and Daniel later (before the Marine Corps) worked for Joey Macrae in Anderson, South Carolina, an extraordinary professional horseman, breaking and training horses.  I have ridden in the rain, blazing sun, and snow.  I have seen my son Joshua and his horse buried up to his thighs in snow, and watched him ride the horse up from sinking in the drift and stay on him while keeping the horse and him safe.

Why is all (or any) of this important?  Because as I tried to convey in my earlier post, it is critical to have an understanding and mastery over animals, especially if what we think will happen in America really happens.  And Mountain Guerrilla is right about logistics too.  But I’m not so sure that the Army was the first to field this idea.  See my article on Marines and Mules.  The Small Wars Journal had discussion on the importance of animals to logistics long ago.

The problem is that the Marine Corps has forgotten the lessons, and I’m afraid that the Army will never really take them to heart.  The modern U.S. military is techno-weighted down, with gadgetry, doohickeys, and reliance on constant logistics.  The so-called big dog is a symptom of this sickness, as is the huge budget for DARPA every year.  Truthfully, I think this is all related to the effete pressure for gender neutrality in the military.

But don’t you forget these lessons.  Plan ahead.  Learn how to make fire, how to purify water, how to fight, how to make your way around terrain, and how to navigate with maps and a compass (rather than using GPS like the liar Marine Corps officer candidates who were found out during officer’s school).

And learn animals.  Your life will be better for it.  This goes for cops too.

For LEOs (and all other men), learn to doctor animals.  Learn their anatomy.  Learn the necessity of voice inflection and timbre.  Learn voice commands.  Learn how the movement of a shoulder one way or the other can communicate things to animals.  Learn what to do with your eyes.

If you are a LEO and your father was a putz and didn’t teach you any of these things, then go to a farm and volunteer your time in order to learn animals.  They are much more predictable than men and sometimes much better company.  Your life will be enriched for it.

Not that any LEOs will take this to heart.  Then again, from the cowardly pussies like you witnessed in the video above, we can move to the criminally pathological like we have seen in Buffalo and now in Detroit.

Two Detroit residents filed a civil rights lawsuit against the Detroit Police Department Wednesday, alleging that several police officers needlessly and maliciously shot their three dogs during a marijuana raid.

Kenneth Savage and Ashley Franklin say that on July 22, 2016, Detroit police raided their house and found the dogs in a back yard bounded by an eight-foot-tall fence. The officers refused to let Savage and Franklin retrieve the dogs and, instead, shot them.

The reason? Officers found several potted marijuana plants in the backyard Savage and Franklin contend were there legally.

The suit is now the third active civil rights action against the Detroit Police Department for killing dogs during marijuana raids. A Reason investigation last year found that the Detroit Police Department’s Major Violators Unit, which conducts hundreds of drug raids a year in the city, had a nasty habit of leaving dead dogs in its wake. One officer had killed 69 dogs over the course of his career, public records obtained by Reason showed.

According to a search warrant affidavit, a Detroit police officer, while investigating an unrelated matter, observed several marijuana plants outdoors at the home of Savage, Franklin, and their son.

Two days later, eight Detroit police officers arrived at the house. Police were aware Savage and Franklin had a permit to grow medical marijuana, but the plants were in violation because they were visible outside, the search warrant affidavit said.

When Franklin showed police her marijuana paperwork and demanded to see a search warrant, an officer responded, “If you keep asking for a warrant, we are gonna kill those dogs and call child protective services to pick up your kid,” the lawsuit says.

Officers detained Franklin and searched the house, but could not get to the marijuana plants because of the dogs. They initially called animal control but decided to destroy the animals, the lawsuit says. Officers shot and killed one dog through the fence, broke into the backyard enclosure, and fatally shot the other two. Animal control arrived ten minutes later.

There is only one solution to the criminally pathological like this, and retraining isn’t it.

It sounds juvenile even to be asking the question.

The question has been asked: Is the 1911 an effective defensive platform?

Well, yes it is. The pistol may not be the PERFECT defensive pistol, but it is a workable platform for those who choose to carry it; workable if you train properly.

Two of the biggest knocks against the 1911 are the light, single-action trigger and the frame-mounted thumb safety. Some people say the light trigger is the cause of negligent discharges with this type of pistol. Others claim the safety is a problem in a gunfight because, under stress, one will forget to disengage said safety and therefore get killed.

Seriously?  Someone has actually raised the objection to the 1911 that it isn’t designed with double action?  I find the infatuation with cheap plastic guns almost amusing if it wasn’t so sad.

Look, if you want to be sure that you have a ready weapon, chamber a round and put the safety on.  Or don’t.  My holsters guard the trigger anyway.

It’s easy to practice sweeping the safety down as soon as you unholster the weapon.  And John Basilone says hello.

Reader Michael Schlechter, MD, sends this along.

Boggs and colleagues conducted the Treatment Utilization Before Suicide (TUBS) study to determine if limiting firearm access for individuals with a mental health condition or a history of suicidal attempts prevented suicide deaths. They identified 2,674 adults and adolescents from eight integrated health systems who were continuously enrolled in the system for at least 10 months prior to suicide. The researchers separated participants into two groups based on medical records and claims information. The first group consisted of those who were diagnosed with any mental health or substance use condition in the year before death. The second group consisted of those who had made previous suicide attempts. The researchers noted that the groups were not mutually exclusive and that there was considerable overlap between individuals who had a mental health condition and whose who previously attempted suicide.

Researchers found that the majority of patients with a history of suicide attempts or mental health or substance abuse committed suicide through means other than firearms, while the majority of people who did commit suicide with a firearm did not have a previous diagnosis of mental health issues or suicide attempts. More than half of individuals who died by suicide (54.7%) had a mental health or substance use condition and among those, 42.8% used a firearm. Previous suicide attempts were documented in 10.9% of individuals who died by suicide and only 37.5% of those used a firearm. Approximately 4.1% of individuals who died by suicide with a firearm had previously attempted suicide, while 23.5% were diagnosed with a mental health or substance use condition.

“Our findings show that, even if successful, current efforts to limit firearm access only for persons with a mental health condition (including substance use disorders) or those who previously attempted suicide would prevent few suicide deaths by firearm,” Boggs and colleagues concluded. “We suggest that prevention of firearm suicide should be expanded beyond the current focus on these patients to include other persons at risk for suicide… Our findings also highlight the importance of expanding attention beyond an exclusive focus on firearms — especially for persons with mental health or substance use conditions — to include other common means of suicide, such as instruments used for suffocation (for example, rope for hanging) and poison (for example, medications, alcohol, and recreational drugs).”

I have not read the study, and would be happy to evaluate the statistical calculations if I had the chance.  But assuming the fidelity and accuracy of the analysis, this seems to me to be important work.

You always hear three things from the gun controllers as justifications for more control.  First, high gun violence rates, which as I’ve pointed out predominately occur in the inner cities as black on black violence, pointing to a moral and cultural problem rather than guns.  Second, mentally ill people and their propensity to violence.  But as we’ve conclusively shown (or at least we’ve conclusively shown what the mental health professionals think), mental illness has no correlation to propensity to violence.

Finally, there is the study above.  Take note that of the three, two reasons for more gun control concern the mentally ill.  Frankly, I’ve never seen such maligned class of people by such a prejudiced bunch of bigots.

Rekha Basu:

Of course if you have a mental condition you never sought treatment for, there’s no way to know about it without doing an evaluation, which isn’t required. And though lying on the form is a Class-D felony, by the time the lie is discovered, it could be too late.

Well, everyone has a mental condition.  It’s whatever condition you happen to be in mentally.  What the writer is really suggesting is that people suffering from mental illness should not be qualified to own firearms.

But since we’ve demonstrated that mental illness has nothing to do with propensity to violence, the writer is a prejudiced bigot.  Were you raised that way Rekha, or was this just part of earning your progressive creds so that the other staff writers respect you?  Are your fellow writers as bigoted as you are?

Oh, and I see where you’re going with this.  Anyone who believes in the second amendment and a God-given right to bear arms is to be found as “mentally ill” by doctors who have been trained in Freud and Derrida.  Nice try.  No.  Your turn.