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Saturday, Jan. 26, 2013 | 2:01 a.m.
Another view?
View more of the Las Vegas Sun's opinion section:
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Reports of Metro Police Lt. Hans Walters underscore the mental health component of the current gun control debate. Walters shot and killed his wife, a former police officer, and his son and then set fire to their Boulder City home before taking his own life.
Most would agree police departments conduct exhaustive background checks, screening tests, training and safety procedures before authorizing officers to carry and deploy a number of firearms. Yet a former colleague comments to the Las Vegas Review-Journal that Walters “didn’t seem out of the ordinary at all,” adding that “Cops are pretty intuitive. They can tell when something’s wrong with someone. He seemed totally fine.” Yet two days later, something went horrifically wrong mentally to result in such a tragedy. The focus of the gun control debate should center on the specifics of mental health issues resulting in all violent behavior.
A comprehensive mental health evaluation by a psychiatrist would be beneficial. However, I don't recommend one that is paid by any government agency to do other evaluations.
Just reading some of the comments here gives some obvious clues to some mental health problems that should prevent licensing any gun.
Today because of HIPAA-1996, Privacy Rules,, there is NO sharing of appropriate information with immediate family and law enforcement.
In this case it maybe due to a family crisis, a crime of passion, something other then mental illness. The police will have to find out.
The ACLU needs to stop fight the intervention help need for mental healthcare. Democrats and ACLU want an open national gun ownership database yet will not support sharing medical info with immediate family and law enforcement.
Clearly none of the existing OR PROPOSED Senator Diane Feinstein gun control assault weapon laws would have made a difference
If mental illness was involved and ALLOWED to be reported then we may have had a different outcome
In reply to John Edward Jordan; while your statement, "Most would agree police departments conduct exhaustive background checks, screening tests, training and safety procedures before authorizing officers to carry and deploy a number of firearms"; surely have differing levels of truth between each law enforcement agency. What you failed to mention Mr. Jordan is the power that management in these law enforcement agencies have, as well as their unions in protecting officers who have clearly developed mental health issues as tenured law enforcement personnel.
Here are some examples from the agency I was employed by for over twenty-years:
A K-9 officer of eight years was reported to have been distraught over a breakup with his Internet girlfriend of whom it was alleged the officer had never met in person. Approximately ten days later after this breakup, the officer while off-duty at his residence committed suicide by putting the barrel of his weapon in his mouth and discharging the subject weapon.
A shift supervisor of the grade of Lieutenant with thirteen years of service was known to be in the midst of a heated divorce that was strongly being contested. With alcohol as a contributing factor, the subject lieutenant while engaged in a domestic dispute with his estranged wife pulled out his personal weapon. A struggle between the officer and female took place. It was never determined who in fact discharged this weapon. However, the lieutenant was shot in his foot. The subject supervisor was returned to full duty.
An academy instructor and K-9 officer of seven years took off several hours early from his scheduled post. When he arrived home he found his wife with another man. The officer murdered with his privately owned gun his wife and two children. The man having the sexual affair with the officer's wife escaped unharmed. However, moments later, the subject officer, utilizing his gun, committed suicide just prior to on-duty officers arriving on scene
Be advised, John Edward Jordan, the examples I could utilize of law enforcement officers "losing their minds" would cover pages and pages.
While I disagree with the title of your letter to the editor; I do believe mental health problems can be quite easy to identify and reported. But, I do agree, where you wrote, "The focus of the gun control debate should center on the specifics of mental health issues resulting in all violent behavior."
I will add that we need a fair and universal focus that includes all elected and or appointed public servants.
Did not have a mental health problem, just a Metro Mentality mindset. They all think they are better than everyone else. They are brainwashed with "it is a war out there" and behave accordingly. I want to hear the 911 call tapes, why are they being withheld?
Some police, very very few, suffer from a unique phenomenon. They deal with the dregs of society so long and so much that they lose faith in the inherent goodness of the majority of people. They become poisoned by their experiences. They can't distiguish the good guys from the bad anymore because they think all are bad, even the ones they love and cherish. Did Lt. Hans Walters suffer from this syndrome? How would we ever know? What are symptoms? What are the signs? Who knows?
CarmineD
There are very few commenters on this site that I would trust with a gun.
Where does the public hear most of the talk about treating the mental health issues of the entire nation instead of banning assault weapons and high capacity clips? Fox News is where we hear it the most and it comes directly from the NRA.
Can we also say that the NRA suffers from a unique phenomenon because they constantly deal with the dregs of society ( far right ) for so long they also lose all faith in people?
How many mass murders like the most recent in Newtowne and Aurora took place in the days following the writing of the 2nd amendment?
A typical legislative conundrum. Which is the "higher" right? The right of one person to life? The right of another person to privacy of health care information? The right of yet another person to carry any firearm he/she may be able to afford and to physically haul around? Given - you MUST rank these as #1, #2, and #3.
Anyone with a definitive answer, please share and factually defend your answer. We may consider you in 2016.
When I submitted this opinion I titled it: "Mental Health Not Gun Control."
The Sun's Editorial staff decided on: "Mental health not so easy to judge."
My intended focus was on Mental Health Issues resulting in ALL violent behavior. The exampled story cited more than one form of violent crimes: gun and arson. Yes I do agree with Bradley Chapline's assessment law enforcement's organizational flaws in over site and transparency with respect to mental health among it's ranks. As a father of a sworn peace officer this weighs heavily on my mind. Our most recent major gun related crimes however stems from a generally lack of recognition of existing mental health issues or doing anything about it by those closest to those committing the violence. Sandy Hook, Texas, New Mexico are just few recent examples of those ignoring the signs end losing their lives as well others for their non- attention. I am going suggest the mental health signs are not that hard to judge if we honest with ourselves and others.
In reply to John Edward Jordan Sr.; thank you for your reply. Yes, the Las Vegas Sun have done the same to me, on occasion. That is, changing the title of material I have submitted to the editor. And, on one occasion, the editor of the Las Vegas Sun took the heart of my letter content and changed it making it appear that my opinion was to fire a blank round at a home intruder instead of a live round. I couldn't believe what the editor had done to my letter. Of course, the amount of angry responses towards my letter that the Sun revised was huge.
My original letter to the editor only recommended that gun owners in their dwellings might decide to fire a blank round to scare a POSSIBLE intruder away only in cases at a moment where the "POTENTIAL" intruder has not legally been established as an imminent threat to the homeowner and family. In other words, my letter to the editor was designed to help the homeowner and certainly not the criminal element.
So yes, Mr. Jordan, I well understand how just a tad of editing can change the public outlook to a submitted letter to the editor!!! My apology to you for the misunderstanding, Mr. Jordan.
This is a tangent to the letter, but I agree with BChap that there have been times when the Sun has made subtle changes to a letter I have submitted.
On the other hand, the title the Sun puts on a letter gives one insight into how other perceive the main thrust of a letter, which may be quite different than what was intended.
My letters are now usually published verbatim, but the title is always what the Sun thinks is bets. As in the case of this letter, I tend to ignore the title and judge for myself what the author is saying.
Hi there Jim, and thanks for adding your comments here. Yes, I clearly remember the situation we had that was also an editing issue.
I think it is high time that I learn not to take any issue whatsoever with the title of a letter to the editor.
Thanks for reconsidering the intent of my opinion letter based on my posted comments.
John.....
The fact is this,
If the assault rifle ban was still in place, that
mental case would not have been able to kill all
of those kids and teachers.
A new ban on assault rifles is needed NOW.
And then we can look at other regulations and
mental health care issues.
When the news is about a police officer committing a crime it's big news.When the same type of crime is committed by John Q.Public it's small news.
Policemen and women are just as human as the next person,and have the same types of problems that we all share.They do a tremendous job protecting the public,as best they can.It's time to look at them just like everyone else,as people who sometimes have a problem.No one group has it all perfect.
Why do we continue to ignore that many police suffer from PTSD and never get the treatment they should?
To my fellow bloggers,
there are lot of good suggestions and many of them have been tried before, and there has been success, but not always . Human nature is unpredictable and most of the time you can only hope for the best . Most of the time police officers emotionally recover quickly after seeing a traumatic event, but I can attest, that you never ever forget it. A sound, a scene, a word can all trigger that memory up, and you get to relive the entire event again. The trick is not to "act out" on that traumatic memory . I have never had too much faith in the psychiatry business to cure anybody , but I do believe that techniques can be taught and learned to properly cope with certain situations . Just an old veteran cop reflecting ,
Gordon Martines.....curre.org