My honest to goodness reaction when I saw this story was “Only 34,500?”:
A newly created database of New Yorkers deemed too mentally unstable to carry firearms has grown to roughly 34,500 names, a previously undisclosed figure that has raised concerns among some mental health advocates that too many people have been categorized as dangerous.
The database, established in the aftermath of the mass shooting in 2012 at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and maintained by the state Division of Criminal Justice Services, is the result of the Safe Act. It is an expansive package of gun control measures pushed through by the administration of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. The law, better known for its ban on assault weapons, compels licensed mental health professionals in New York to report to the authorities any patient “likely to engage in conduct that would result in serious harm to self or others.”
But the number of entries in the database highlights the difficulty of America’s complicated balancing act between public safety and the right to bear arms when it comes to people with mental health issues. “That seems extraordinarily high to me,” said Sam Tsemberis, a former director of New York City’s involuntary hospitalization program for homeless and dangerous people, now the chief executive of Pathways to Housing, which provides housing to the mentally ill. “Assumed dangerousness is a far cry from actual dangerousness.”
Unless NYC and New York have changed a helluva lot since the last time I was there (several years), you can walk a dozen blocks and cover an area with at least 34k people who most definitely should not own firearms. Right about now, there are probably at least that many diehard Jets fans who should own a gun.
*** Update ***
Via the comments, the NYPD FAQ:
How many Police Officers are there in the NYPD?
The NYPD’s current uniformed strength is approximately 34,500.
Hrmmm.
PsiFighter37
Yeah, you should be more familiar with NYC before making a pretty ignorant statement like that, Cole. The city is a hell of a lot safer than whatever kind of post-apocalyptic hellhole you envision it to be.
Hug and kisses,
A decidedly not-shitting-myself NYC resident
MattF
The really scary thing is that they all live in Rochester.
WereBear
OR…
the fact that one state who is on the high end of getting help when you need it (sliding curve, I know) has this many people who have triggered a danger warning is, in fact, a fact.
That’s only 0.0018% of the population. Sociopaths are estimated at what, 2%?
John Cole +0
@PsiFighter37: It was a fucking joke. The state has 20 million people. There are more than 34k (by at least an order of ten) people in New York who should not own guns.
You missed that in your defensive reaction to a FUCKING JOKE. Craig Ferguson was right about Nazis and Canadians. There the only ones you can tease anymore- Nazis, because who gives a fuck about them, and Canadians, because they get that it’s a joke and usually are just excited to be mentioned.
Stan of the Sawgrass
Hope Governor Crist passes this law down here! I can’t wait to see THAT number!
Violet
Is that for the state or NYC? If it’s for the state, that’s not very many people.
Violet
@PsiFighter37: So safe that mentally unstable people–of which there are of course fewer than 34,500–should own guns?
Hungry Joe
I’d find it unnerving if 34,500 people in any large city were categorized as fit to carry a weapon. I don’t think I’d go around shooting people if I were allowed to pack — though you never know — but I drop my keys, phone, and whatever else I’ve got on me often enough to be turned down with an impolite “In your dreams we’ll issue you a permit.” And I suspect that most people are at least as clumsy, and possibly every bit as irresponsible as I am.
WereBear
@Violet: In my math, I used the whole state, 2010 census, because “New Yorkers” is how it would work.
Svensker
It is true that Jet’s fans should own a gun to put ourselves out of our misery.
The number of NYers who shouldn’t have a gun and those who drive ginormous cars in Miami may overlap, not sure.
Ruckus
@Violet:
Just among the people I know, which is not that many, there are about 20-25% that shouldn’t have access to weapons. Some because they have no clue about personal responsibility, some because they are nuts, and some because they like guns too much. Even if my circle of acquaintances would be on the right side of the curve(and it isn’t) and we cut that number in half, and 10% is a pretty good percentage of people that shouldn’t have access to weapons, that’s a lot of people. In the country that’s over 30 million, NYC around 800K, etc.
scav
@WereBear: Yup. Given the article talks about county officials, mentions county names other than the holy 5 and even brings up differences in buying long guns outside the city, mention upstate . . .
and I would so love to track the overlap of those screaming for quarantinequaentinequarantine with those screaming about a potential loss of “constitutional rights!”
WereBear
@scav: I’m sure they are thinking, “But ya cain’t shoot Ebola! What are we supposed to do now?”
Ahasuerus
Hey Cole –
Completely off-topic, but did you ever go to see Fury? If so, given your Armor background, what did you think of it?
NonyNony
According to a quick scan of statistics, the state of New York has about 19.7 million people in it. Of which 8.4 million live in New York City. If we’re talking about the state (which I assume from the article) then 34,500 is about 0.175% of the population of the whole state. If it’s NYC alone (and the article is poorly written) then it would be 0.410% of the population of the city.
Now that’s about 2 people out of every thousand or 4 people out of every thousand depending on which way we read the stats. But given the number of people I personally know, and how many of them probably shouldn’t be allowed to own a firearm or anything else they might harm themselves with I doubt it is. (And that’s not counting the three friends/family members I’ve lost to suicide – all of whom were getting help and who certainly should have been on a list like that).
PsiFighter37
@Violet: No, that wasn’t the point – just that Cole’s assertion about the city being as unsafe as he believes it to be is far off the mark.
Tree With Water
I look at it this way. Every human being on earth has a temper, including every gun owner. To every gun owner who claims to be “responsible”, a fair response is always, “so far”.
Rifles don’t bother me much. It’s tough to walk down a street looking indiscreet toting a rifle, and in sane jurisdictions, it’s also illegal. But handguns are different. Should a fit of insane impulse overwhelm a person- and people being only human, it can happen to anyone- that person becomes death, destroyer of worlds including their own. Throw in the malicious and the deranged that walk among us, and you best stay on your toes in this country. Where gun control is concerned, I genuinely pity sane Americans living in the non-sane states.
Citizen_X
All I can think is that 34,500 is way less than 27%.
burnspbesq
@John Cole +0:
People much smarter than you are whiffing on your attempts at making jokes. Maybe it’s you and not us.
burnspbesq
BTW, at last count, other than members of players’ and staff members’ families, there were only eight known diehard Jets fans.
John Cole +0
@burnspbesq: Fuck off. Don’t you have some corporate whores to blow?
different-church-lady
@NonyNony: Good on you for doing the math. Math is one of those things that can give perspective when the creeps-that-be don’t want you to have perspective.
It is INCREDIBLY easy to imagine that 1 out of every 500 people you meet is too unbalanced to safely be trusted with a gun. It doesn’t mean all of those people are going to go off the edge, it just means you don’t want to take that chance. Hell, I wouldn’t trust that many people to watch my cat, never mind my life.
different-church-lady
I think you meant to say that many Jets fans who should NOT own a gun.
Ruckus
@burnspbesq:
No, it’s you.
BBA
According to Wikipedia there are 34,500 uniformed officers in the NYPD. Coincidence?
TriassicSands
If they reported that 34,500 New Yorkers were qualified to safely own firearms, I’d say that was closer to the right number.
And in states like Texas, that number would be way, way too high.
Ruckus
@BBA:
Probably not.
But just on the basis that they can’t all be bad, I’d bet the number is not all them and by some noticeable percent.
Citizen_X
@BBA:
Of course not! Who did you think they were talking about?
Violet
@PsiFighter37: That’s not what Cole said. He said there are that many people in a dozen blocks in NYC who shouldn’t own firearms. He didn’t comment on the safety of the city. Just the mental stability of the people there.
Mike in NC
No doubt the NRA is working on its favorite politicians to have these databases completely eliminated.
chopper
@PsiFighter37:
There certainly are at least 34,500 people in NYC who shouldn’t be allowed near a gun. In dealt with a great number of them every day living in the city.
Another Holocene Human
@WereBear: Exactly, I mean forget sociopaths they definitely haven’t identified everyone with emergent mental illness alone, never mind the whole group of people with a “history of domestic violence” and other behavioral triggers.
Just sounds like somebody doesn’t not grok public health to say in a state of millions it’s somehow shocking you’ve identified a few thousands who meet this particular criterion.
Another Holocene Human
@Violet: Cole is confused by the culture of the Northeast corridor. Precisely BECAUSE you are less likely to be physically assaulted (unless you’re a GENDERFRAUD between hours of twilight and dawn in a public place, then it’s a killing zone) people are very open about telling you exactly what they think, right to your face.
For someone who comes from a place where people “sprich durch die Blueme” for fear of the other person losing face (and, implicitly, becoming violent) it can be quite stressful to interact with people who are very blunt.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Hungry Joe:
Whoever the editor on this story was should be sent back to editor school. The first sentence uses the word “carry”. The third paragraph talks about the right to “bear arms”. At the 12th paragraph we read:
Another Holocene Human
@BBA: Ahem. Where would you like your internets delivered, sir?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Blockquote fail. Sorry.
Cheers,
Scott.
(My kingdom for a Preview button!!)
Mike J
Speaking of guns, we have two initiatives on the ballot in WA. 594:
591 tries to start with something innocuous sounding and slip the poison in later:
Due process is great! Who could be against that? Oh, and it nullifies 594.
Amir Khalid
My own instinct is to agree with John Cole that 34,500 people restricted from having guns seems an oddly low fraction of the population, whether of New York City or New York state.
That said, when one finds oneself defending one’s words with “That was a joke, son” every so often, one might want to consider the vague possibility that it might be a good idea to think about reassessing one’s joke-telling skills.
Xjmueller
@John Cole +0: John, good to see you engaging the commentariat in you inimitable, whimsiclal style.@John Cole +0: @John Cole +0:
FlyingToaster
Given the reporting structure, a non-trivial number of the 34,500 are going to be Alzheimer’s or senile dementia patients, who really shouldn’t have guns. Seriously.
I’m with Cole here; I think the number’s a little low for a state of ~20M. I’d expect this to climb to between 50K and 60K when factoring in senility, attempted suicides, and college-age emergent mental illnesses (schizophrenia, various flavors of bipolar disorder, etc.). Of course, I live in Massachusetts, and good luck convincing your local police chief that you need a gun permit :)
Frankensteinbeck
Absolutely true. However, we’re not discussing criminal conviction, losing your job, or anything else so important that I would care about this distinction. We’re discussing owning a weapon, and I have no problem with leaning on the side of safety. I would have no problem with leaning much harder.
Yatsuno
@Mike J: Sometimes our initiative process is great. Then Tim Eyman figured out a way to make a
griftliving off it. Now it’s turning into a joke.beth
My thoughts exactly when I first read the article and saw the low amount on my local newspage. It is very low for my very populated, very angry state.
Amir Khalid
The story suggests the main concern here is the quality of the database: the 34,500 in it weren’t vetted properly beforehand for whatever reason. So there might be people who don’t belong in it — people who are mentally ill but not violent, for example. I wonder if it’s even feasible to go back and review that many cases.
Another Holocene Human
@FlyingToaster:
Just ask the transgender community in Mass, lots of ways for somebody to kill you without a gun. Southerners just lack imagination.
I’m just bitter because
http://www.buzzfeed.com/tonymerevick/a-timeline-of-violence-agianst-transgender-people-in-the-us
http://www.queerty.com/trans-woman-brutally-beaten-in-new-york-hate-crime-investigation-underway-20141014
Violet
Don’t forget to vote for Karen in GA’s Iggy in the photo contest. Poor Iggy has been getting treated for heartworms and they could all use a pick me up. You don’t have to sign up or anything. Just click the “vote” button.
bmoak
Jets fans shouldn’t have guns because of the high suicide risk.
Violet
@bmoak: Don’t think you’re safe. Anger and despair can be pointed at oneself or at others.
Another Holocene Human
When somebody asks “what’s the harm?” in indulging their stupid ass religion and clergy, see my post #44. The brutal attacks on trans* people in the Northeast have the Roman Catholic Church’s fingers all over them, but other patriarchal and homophobic religions are not innocent here.
(For example, Shomrim beat the hell out of a young, Black gay man in Brooklyn last year, not clear (since they’re all lying their tucheses off about it) if they attacked him because he was a goy walking through their ‘hood, because he was a shvartze and you know, shvartze, or because he was gay, which is extremely threatening in their super-repressed, misogynistic sex-separated pedophile-enabling subculture. But why not all three? Btw, Shomrim? Talk about white privilege.)
Adam Lang
@John Cole +0: Damn straight. I’d say that just living in NYC is probably enough to make you unfit to carry a gun, but I used to live in New Jersey so I’m preeeetty clearly not someone who should be throwing stones.
(But then, I have never tried to get a gun permit, either. So.)
Another Holocene Human
@Violet: I hit “vote” and then the screen said “undefined” so I’m not sure it took it.
Another Holocene Human
@beth: Are New Yorkers really angrier than Utahns, who have the highest rates of SSRI prescriptions in the US?
I will say, upstate New York, a place I always romanticized my whole life, boy did it disabuse me of such notions this summer while I was on vacation, and yes it’s a very angry place. It is pretty populated but not populous like the NYC metro area which, frankly, was not particularly angry.
If you want to see people get insulted over nothing, lose their shit, turn red and get ready to throw down, pull a knife or a gun, come to the South.
Civilization is a few hundred years late in arriving, is what I’m saying.
Violet
@Another Holocene Human: I don’t know. It’s a totally crappy and stupid website. You can’t search through the photos except page by page. You can’t see how many votes a pet has unless you vote. It’s just dumb. Edit: But on Karen’s and Iggy’s behalf, thank you for trying to vote, even if it may not have worked.
Amir Khalid
Why is everyone commenting in bold?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
JC broke the fonts (everything’s bold) with his update.
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Violet
Wow! I know John felt strongly about this, but even so…
Another Holocene Human
@Violet: lol, I know, right?
Another Holocene Human
@Violet: Maybe Publix thought they could pay their web developers like they pay tomato pickers, ahurr…
http://ciw-online.org/publix/
Another Holocene Human
Moderated for linking to the Coalition of Immokalee Workers?
No, fuck YOU WordPress!
ETA: that looks really shouty in bold. Ugh.
Roger Moore
@burnspbesq:
You owe me a replacement ironometer. My old one just pegged the needle so hard it broke.
RSA
Is anyone else reminded of Cyrus’s speech at the beginning of The Warriors?
Violet
@Another Holocene Human: Yeah, probably. Maybe they just got the twelve year old nephew of the PR manager to do it.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Violet: It looks like he, or someone, fixed it.
TYWP!
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Holocene Human
@Violet: Hiring from within! It’s the Publix way!
(I guess that’s why their baked goods come off a truck now … eh, I’ll stop.)
Howard Beale IV
@Another Holocene Human:
And the further you get away from the major population centers the worse their it gets. Seems to me they never shed their plantation society mindset and you still got a segment of the population that say “The South will rise ageen!”
I just love their bitching when they git hit with a snowstorm-you’d think the Rapture had started. Thankfully, the only places in the South I’ve been to were (1) major cities and (2) I never stayed longer than a week.
Josie
@Amir Khalid: Glad you asked that. I thought it was just my computer going astray.
Frankensteinbeck
@Howard Beale IV:
I grew up in the South and have lived in California and traveled a bit in other parts of the US. The South is a culture of hate. It’s not just racism – it’s pure hate, looking for any outlet. You are merely describing one way it shows itself.
Howard Beale IV
@Roger Moore:
Haven’t you heard? Analog metering died 15 years ago-it’s all digital now.
Howard Beale IV
@Frankensteinbeck: That I don’t doubt. In some ways I’d love to give them a one-time shot to secede – and then lay out what they would give up by becoming their own country and what they would have to do. Hell, it would actually be one of the Koch’s wet dreans if they could actually make it happen – but it would blow up so spectacularly they wouldn’t dare show their face in public.
raven
@Howard Beale IV: What a crock of bullshit.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Yatsuno: Hi, California here. Welcome to our nightmare.
WereBear
@Frankensteinbeck: Yup, reminds me of The Wild One:
What are you angry about?
What have you got?
Roger Moore
@Howard Beale IV:
OK, you caught me. I’m trying to get a free upgrade as part of the deal. It’s amazing that old ironometer lasted so long around here.
JPL
@raven: Actually not. A neighbor who is a retired teacher just complained because she can only sub 15 days a month. She blamed Obamacare since Fulton County doesn’t want there subs to be full time employees. Yes she has a pension.
Since there are only twenty days that she could sub, I actual call that full time.
raven
@JPL: And that proves what? I think you missed what I was replying to.
JPL
@raven: There is a mentality in the suburbs that the South would be better off without the federal government and I live in a town considering a city wide color palette for the outside of homes. Really…
I’ll agree though, it’s not just the south.
mai naem
I can’t believe its the same number of cops and people found to be unsuitable to carry a weapon. What is the statistical probability of that according to Nate Silver?
Yatsuno
@BillinGlendaleCA: Well fortunately our state avoided a huge tax nightmare last go round. It’s going to get more tense as Seattle gets more socialist & the east & north doubles down on the crazy. Of course the east side of the state thinks it can go alone without all the sweet sweet tax money they get from the West. Never mind that virtually all economic engines over here rely on the Feds in one way or another. Can’t wait until the big teanut wins here so he thinks it’ll give him a push to take down Patty Murray.
FlyingToaster
@JPL: That’s not just the South. The gated community culture has spread far-n-wide. Mitt’s condo in Belmont is in the gated 55+ community next to McLean Hospital.
IMHO, if you want a gated community, go live on an island. Set up your “gate” at the causeway or ferry dock. And go without tourist money.
SWMBO
@FlyingToaster: Didn’t they try that in South America? How’d that work out for them?
Roger Moore
@FlyingToaster:
I have to admit, I kind of like the idea of gated communities, just so long as we can lock the gates from the outside. That’s a lot easier with an island.
The Fat Kate Middleton
I’ve never shared this anywhere, and maybe I shouldn’t now … but when a family member was released from a three-week stay in the local psych unit (bipolar paranoic schizophrenia), she shared with me how lucky she felt that she lived in a state where the mentally ill could buy guns. When I asked her why, she said (of course), “Because now I can kill myself.” When I reminded her that her little boys would be devastated, she assured me they would not, because she would kill them, too. We immediately saw to it that her picture was shared with all gun shops within a fifty-mile radius, and the promise that they would not sell any weapon to her. I don’t really know how effective that might have been, but it was five years ago, and she really does seem incapable of doing that now.
WereBear
@The Fat Kate Middleton: Thank you for sharing that. It says a lot about gun control.
Ripley
(Punches down.) It was just a joke. (Punches down harder.)
chrome agnomen
27% of 20 million is 5.4 million. just sayin’.
Smedley the uncertain
@Mike in NC: There are signs all over Western NY calling for the repeal of the SAFE act and the impeachment of Gov. Cuomo.