An atmosphere of intimidation
Licensed gun owners can now bring their firearms into Texas’ 10 state psychiatric hospitals.
Until this year, guns were banned at the state-run facilities, which house people with serious mental illnesses. No one — visitors, delivery people and the like — could bring firearms anywhere on the hospitals’ campuses. Even local law enforcement officers, who were allowed to bring their weapons into the facilities, regularly lock up their guns before entering Austin State Hospital out of an abundance of caution. That isn’t expected to change.
But. You can hear the “but” coming.
But state officials say two new laws made it clear to them that they can’t keep guns off the hospitals’ campuses. The open carry law allows gun license holders to openly carry their firearms. A second law fines state agencies for wrongly hanging “no guns” signs.
Hospitals are asking people not to, but asking is all they’re allowed to do. There’s only so much asking one wants to do with someone sporting a gun in a holster.
Terry Holcomb, founder and executive director of Texas Carry, joined other gun rights activists in saying that the state is wrong to blame the open carry law for allowing guns on the hospital campuses. The activists say even before that law, license holders were free to take their guns on those campuses and that the state’s ban at the psychiatric hospitals was an illegal infringement on gun owners’ rights.
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The psychiatric hospital gun issue comes at a time when Texans are just beginning to use a new law allowing those with a gun license to carry firearms in a belt or a holster without concealing them. Supporters say it will enhance public safety, though studies they have cited fall short of proving that to be fact. Opponents maintain that it will create an atmosphere of intimidation.
But we know that nobody ever pulls a gun in a fit of rage, we know there are no impulsive murders committed when people are drunk or high or in a temper or power-crazed, we know we can trust absolutely everybody to be reasonable and ethical with the guns on their hips.
Hahahaha just kidding. No we don’t. We know the opposite. We know that people do flip out, and we know it’s not a good idea to make murder so easy that it can be committed before the flipped out person can stop to reflect.
But this is Amurrika, so we do the wrong thing anyway and call it “rights.”
Does this mean they can’t even take the guns from patients? So someone on suicide watch, you can take their belt, their nail file, even their glasses, but you have to leave their gun, because that would be violating their rights? Probably not, I’m sure, but still…
No, I don’t think it means that. But yes, still. Just for one thing, obviously a patient could get a gun away from a visitor.
And we (“we”) are in love with the good guys vs. bad guys idea. So as long as we can keep guns out of the “bad guys'” hands, everything’s cool. But it’s not only “bad guys” (people with criminal records or severe mental illness) who shoot people. Like you say, it’s also angry people, drunk people, desperate people. In other words, it’s also just… people.
What about making it rather much better for a person not to carry a gun?
For instance, you can carry it, but you must be escorted at all times by a armed guard standing behind you.
You can carry it, but leave your ammunition at the front desk.
You can carry it, but we’ll have to put an electronic device on you that will monitor you for sound, automatically call 911 if your gun is discharged, and will put out a beacon. It can only be removed by someone with the proper code.
You can carry it, but only after viewing these postmortem pictures of self-inflicted gunshot injuries.
You can carry it, but we’ll need you to have insurance. Please fill out this form and sign here, here, here, and… here. We also need to keep one of your credit cards in case the insurance you claim to have doesn’t cover any injuries or damage you may inflict. Also, please sign a legal waiver promising you won’t sure us if you accidentally shoot yourself on our property. If you do not have insurance, you can purchase a gun-carrier policy after filling out this form and showing photo ID.
Kind of like the asinine obstacles to getting an abortion. Sure, you have a legal right, but…
‘…drunk or high or in a temper or power-crazed,…’
Aren’t those requirements for Texas citizenship?