This strikes me as an utterly stupid idea.
From The Stars and Stripes, via Military.com:
Under a law recently pushed through the state legislature, post-traumatic stress disorder would be noted on the license in the same way that a person’s license might indicate corrective lenses are required for vision, according to a report in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Adding the information would be voluntary and require a sworn statement from a doctor. If signed by the governor, the bill would become law on July 1.
Why do I suspect this is really the first step towards the mandatory disclosure of a PTSD diagnosis, and a further stigmatization of our troops. It doesn’t take a great leap of imagination to see a “logical progression” where citizens who have been diagnosed with PTSD would be prohibited from buying or possessing firearms.
I’m in favor of prohibiting the mentally unsound from possessing firearms. That’s a restriction of civil rights that falls well within the bounds of constitutionality. But the current standard that has to be met is that a court has to make a finding. That’s the whole “due process” thingy at work.
If, as I suspect, this is a ploy to sneak in a restrictive provision over time, it would remove that due process protection for citizens and place the power to infringe constitutional rights into the hands of unaccountable bureaucrats, with likely little recourse to the citizen.
It also shows a remarkable misunderstanding of what most people with PTSD really go through. I’m no expert, but the best description I’ve heard is that you spend a lot of time hyper-aware of your surroundings, as if your nerve endings had been sanded.
Any of you in Georgia might take a moment to encourage your governor to veto this bill, and not start down a path with no good outcomes.
Posted by xbradtc
On May 16th, 2010 under Unfiled.
Comments: 4
Comments
Comment from bar
Time: May 16, 2010, 11:16 am
Not going to happen
Comment from Bill K.
Time: May 16, 2010, 6:52 pm
There is perhaps a counter, should such ever come to pass, the legendary <a href="http://www.ushmm.org/research/library/faq/details.php?topic=04#01" ?yellow star gambit – we ALL paste PTSD stickers on our plates.
I at least am game, and might even qualify – in a non-military sort of way. I think I might have PTSD from too many crisis situations caring for patients and too many lawyers Monday-morning quarterbacking my decisions. By Gosh, I have nightmares even! Cold Sweats! Yelling in my sleep! Can I join?
Pick me! Pick me!
Comment from MaxDamage
Time: May 17, 2010, 12:12 am
We need an amendment to this law, a voluntary status of NBFAAC (Not breast-fed as a child) to also be noted on the drivers license.
At least that way when I do go postal and start shooting up speed cameras, espresso shops, and lead police on a 200 mile chase we can all blame it on my being bottle-fed.
Makes about as much sense.
It’s sort of funny that nearly half the American male population went to war over some part of the last century, and nobody much cared all that much when they came back, built the country up, and made up for lost time.
But go to war in Iraq and you’re a seething threat the police need to know about during a traffic stop?
I think everybody needs to declare this status on their license. After all, we all were born, and that’s one traumatic process. We’re lying around all warm and snug, we get squeezed out or cut out, there’s bright lights and strangers handling us, we have about 36 hours to learn how to feed ourselves and we’re dependent upon Mom for that. We’ve gone from having Mom pump us full of oxygen to having to expel amniotic fluid from our lungs within 3 minutes so we can breathe on our own, and we can’t even overlook breathing for a few moments else die.
Then there’s what whole inheriting a national debt we had nothing to do with and couldn’t even vote on but are expected to pay… Boy did that open my eyes as I entered the world.
Yeah, I was bottle-fed. Didn’t bond with my mother right. That’s why I’m a threat to the state and law enforcement and need a statement thus on my license, even if all I do is vote.
– Max
Comment from Old Quartermaster
Time: June 14, 2010, 10:27 am
Think of all the s**t that first responders have seen, waded through and cleaned up and tell me that they don’t have a touch of PTSD.
Been there, done that, no tee shirt available.
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