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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   17698 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 23, 2025

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A culture-war-adjacent court opinion that @The_Nybbler may find entertaining:

  • An 80-year-old man applies for a permit to buy a rifle. The permit is denied, solely because he was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital for four days forty years ago. He applies for expungement of the records of that commitment, so that he can get the permit.

  • The judge denies the application for expungement.

T.B.'s problematic interaction with LifeStream staff raised questions in the court's mind about T.B.'s "candor to the [c]ourt and fundamental issues that are here."

[T.B.] told the people [at LifeStream] that he was suffering from anxiety and depression. And he said he did that because that’s what he thought he had to say in order to get this appointment so that he could get the evaluation. And a concern to me is that he was not particularly honest with these folks about why he wanted this evaluation.

In that vein, the judge took issue with T.B.'s dismissive characterization of the nature of his hospitalization at Ancora versus the hospital record—namely, that after questioning the staff released him.

In the report it says, "unable to contain on open unit; violent outbursts; threatening; severely agitated; threatening others; yelling; demanding; attempted to strangle his wife at home; violent outbursts; tried to tear side rails off of the [bed]". So, this is not a man who showed up at Ancora mildly agitated or upset, but was described by the doctors down there as threatening behavior, so agitated they couldn't talk to him and violent outbursts towards the people on the staff there.

Regarding his present condition, the court noted that despite the medical reports stating he was stable, T.B. exhibited signs of memory problems and a lack of awareness regarding his own medication regimen.

[T.B.] doesn’t even know what medication he’s taking for his [d]iabetes or for his high cholesterol situation or his [h]yperlipidemia. And that, to me, speaks volumes about not that he’s dangerous to the public safety, but why would we give an 80-year-old man, who can’t even be responsible for his own health, access to a firearm that he wants to use for target practice with his friends. You know, is he going to forget to put the safety on the firearm when he isn’t at the range doing target practice? Is he going to forget to secure it in his home so that people who come to visit don’t have access to it? That’s what’s really of concern to this court.

  • The appeals panel affirms. "The trial court reasonably determined that defendant failed to meet his burden to demonstrate the expungement was in the public interest." No second amendment for him!

On the one hand, this is a horshit denial of 2nd ammendment rights based on bullshit case law that actively makes everyone involved less safe (its the same debate being had right now in the pilot community- when you punish people for seeking mental health care, no one is going to seek mental health care). The courts should be fucking ashamed, and the justices involved run out of town on a rail.

On the other hand, the amount of times I have been muzzle swept by old boomer fudds at the range who cant remeber the 4 rules of gun safety much less their blood pressure medication is way too damn high, and I am all for not letting them have guns.

A way around this is to institute more competency tests, and make them rigorous. This will naturally raise the spectre of jim crow era literacy tests, but fuck it, if you cant recall basic facts like rules of the road, rules of gun safety, or what congress/the president actually do, you shoudlnt be able to shoot, drive, or vote.

A way around this is to institute more competency tests, and make them rigorous. This will naturally raise the spectre of jim crow era literacy tests, but fuck it, if you cant recall basic facts like rules of the road, rules of gun safety, or what congress/the president actually do, you shoudlnt be able to shoot, drive, or vote.

Jim Crow needn't be brought up at all. The countless hoops that New York State has instituted just to be able to carry a pistol (despite being a "shall issue" state now thanks to the Supreme Court) makes it clear that such processes absolutely will be abused (and already are). If we could actually trust our elected officials not to be fuckwad tyrants I'd support measures like the ones you suggest, but until that day (i.e. likely never) I'll stick with near universal gun rights.

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