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Clayton Cramer's BLOG |
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Clayton's commentary on news and events of the day. Broadly speaking, I'm a conservative with libertarian sympathies (getting more conservative as my children get older).
 Never forget! I ran for Idaho state senate in 2008--didn't win I've written a number of history books, as well as scholarly and popular articles, (see my web page).
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Wednesday, April 18, 2007
What, Realistically, Can Be Done? It appears now that Cho's mental illness problems didn't make it into the NICS because he chose to be voluntarily hospitalized--perhaps because he was given that as an alternative to involuntary commitment. I suspect the unwillingness of one of his stalking victims to press charges might have played a part in this as well. So, what can be done to deal with situations like this? If we make voluntary commitments an NICS reportable firearms disability, it will discourage some people from checking themselves in--and that would be a serious problem. That's part of why a lot of mental health professionals in California initially opposed such a state law. Perhaps situations like Cho's, where there was reason to suspect that he might be dangerous, justify involuntary commitment--regardless of whether anyone wants to press charges. The problem is that involuntary commitment in some states, especially for observation, does not have enough protections against abuse of the process. In California, Welfare & Institutions Code 5150 allows: a peace officer, member of the attending staff, as defined by regulation, of an evaluation facility designated by the county, designated membersOnce you have been 5150ed, you lose your right to possess firearms for five years. See Welfare & Institutions Code 8103(f). This can be, and has been abused. I know someone who got upset with a bureaucrat at the Sonoma County Planning Department some years ago, and made some rather stupid and rash statement along the lines, "If I have to do any more paperwork for this subdivision, I'll kill myself." The bureaucrat apparently was sufficiently displeased that he called the police. Within an hour, this guy had been picked up and taken to a mental hospital. Two hours after his admission, he was back out. The staff could see that this guy was no threat to himself or to others--but that 5150 was now a problem, and he had a bit of work to go through to get his firearms disability removed, including petitioning the court--but the burden of proof is to prove that there is good reason to remove that disability. In some counties of California, where hostility to gun ownership by judges is widespread, that would be a high standard to meet, I fear. There needs to be some minimum level of due process to cause a person to lose their right to possess firearms--and it should not be a lifetime disability. There are people who go through difficult times, especially teenagers and young adults, and then straighten their lives out. Five years doesn't seem unreasonable; if someone keeps getting locked up for observation or commitment more than once every five years, he either has a serious problem, or he needs to move to a less abusive locale. Most of the serious mental illnesses will have such a person committed far more often than that. Even then, let's be realistic about the net effect. If Cho's mental problems had made into NICS--and this had caused his purchases to be declined--would it have disarmed him? It appears that whatever Cho's problems, they were not glaringly obvious--not obvious enough to make the gun dealer Cho bought guns from nervous about him. Could Cho have bought guns privately? Very probably. There are mental patients who are so obviously disturbed that a gun dealer would not sell to them--or even allow them into the store. Even the most opportunistic criminal would think twice about selling guns to someone who appeared to be crazy, both out of fear of the mental patient coming to the attention of the police, and out of fear of being injured by the patient. All background check systems work at the margin. They don't work perfectly. They may only prevent the prohibited person from buying at a dealer, causing him to look for a private seller. But any system that isn't hideously expensive--and still works at the margin--can be a good thing. If 2% of prohibited persons, because they can't buy from a dealer, decide not to buy a gun, or need to spend more money or time to find a private seller, this can be a good thing. They may not find a private seller. They may be delayed long enough to give up on their project. They find the cost prohibitive--or not have enough to buy the vast quantity of ammunition that Cho apparently used. We have a choice on this: try to fix a significant hole in the system, even if it isn't perfect, or find ourselves confronting the same problem a few years down the road. I would rather not wait for another mentally ill person to buy a gun from a dealer, and murder 32 people. Labels: deinstitutionalization, gun rights Applaud People Who Put Principle Above Profit Like this black-owned media firm: ST. LOUIS | A St. Louis company that operates four TV stations and a hip-hop radio station said today it is banning programming and music lyrics that it deems violent, sexist and racist.Wow! This takes real courage--and a willingness to cut into one's profit margin. Sad to say, hip-hop is offensive because there's a sizable audience for it--especially among white suburban kids. Labels: political correctness Reminder: I'll Be Out Of Town For A Few Days on a Book Tour I'm not taking my laptop with me, so I won't be blogging much if any. And I probably won't be checking my email, either. But make sure that if you are within several hundred miles of northern New Jersey, you come and see me speak! Labels: my books Tragedies That Won't Stop Boise doesn't have very many murders--there were a total of eight in the years 2003 through 2005--which is pretty impressive for a city of just under 200,000 people. When there is a murder here, it is a front page story for days, such as the two murders (one in Moscow, Idaho, the other in Boise) alleged to have been committed by a very confused and troubled young man named John Delling. This article describes the anguish of Dellings' parents: In the letter, Delling's parents say they are searching for answers and express their "deep sadness at the loss and injury of those three fine young men." Delling's parents also appear to say they tried to get their son help but that his problems overwhelmed the people who tried to help him.Here is something that Delling wrote on a Christian recovery website a while back that captures his mental illness. These tragedies just don't stop. Labels: deinstitutionalization Swinging Pendulum I mentioned yesterday that Cho's Creative Writing professor was so disturbed by some of his work that she tried to get him to go in for counseling. This should be no surprise; over the last forty years, one of the consequences of the deinstitutionalizaton of the mentally ill has been not the release of those who were hospitalized, but the reluctance to hospitalize those whose behavior was peculiar or worrisome. I mentioned a few days ago the story of Joyce Brown, whose bizarre behavior living on a steam grate in New York City in 1987 led to a confrontation between Mayor Koch and the ACLU--and the ACLU won. That's by far the more common side of the problem--mentally ill people living in misery and squalor because their mental illness prevents them asking for, or accepting hospitalization and treatment. The ACLU thinks it is looking out for the dignity of people in this situation. It is a tragedy, but one largely confined to that person. The less common side of the problem is what happens when a mentally ill person goes on a rampage. I say that this is "less common," because it really is relatively rare. But when it happens, everyone knows about. It isn't a localized piece of suffering that ends when someone dies of pneumonia or exposure, but the cause of multiple deaths. Martin Bryant, somewhat retarded, who killed 35 people in Tasmania in 1996, after providing at least clues to his dangerousness because of his involvement in two previous suspicious deaths. James Huberty, who killed 21 people in San Ysidro, California in 1984. Charles Whitman, who murdered 18 people sniping from a tower at the University of Texas in 1966--and who autopsy showed had a golf-ball sized tumor in his brain, and had been receiving psychiatric treatment that didn't look for this physical cause. Thomas Hamilton, who murdered 17 people at a school in Scotland in 1996. His unhealthy interest in little boys was well-known to the authorities; there are some reasons to wonder if Scottish police may have allowed him to have a pistol permit (not easy to get in Britain) covered up aspects of the crime to hide their involvement with Hamilton and child pornography. Michael Ryan, who murdered 16 people in Hungerford, England in 1987. And there are so many others, like Richard Baumhammers, who showed clear evidence of serious mental illness, or the guy who murdered my landlord's daughter in San Francisco in 1982, but no action was taken until they started killing people. There was a time when a person who was just a little eccentric might find himself locked up in a mental hospital without reason. I mentioned O'Connor v. Donaldson (1975) a while back. Lynn Vincent and Robert Stacy McCain's Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party on pp. 181-2 describes how in 1961, a local sheriff brought prostitutes to President Kennedy's suite at the Olympic Hotel in Seattle: Miffed that he hadn't been able to deliver the prostitutes to the president personally, the sheriff warned the hookers, who were already inside the suite: "If any word of this night gets out, I'll see that you both go to Stillicoom [a state mental hospital] and never get out."And at the time, that was a realistic threat. American society was too willing, not that many years ago, to lock someone up in a mental hospital on the say-so of an authority figure. But we have clearly gone too far the other direction--and the consequences of this unwillingness to hospitalize those who are deeply troubled sometimes gives a bitter and bloody harvest. UPDATE: It now appears that Cho was hospitalized, apparently against his will, in 2005--which makes me wonder if the Brady Law background check works: April 18, 2007 — Virginia Tech police say Seung-hui Cho was sent to a nearby mental health hospital for evaluation in December 2005, after two female schoolmates said they received threatening messages from him and school officials became concerned that he might be suicidal.UPDATE 2: A forensic psychiatrist concludes that Cho was schizophrenic: What then leads you to believe Cho had schizophrenia?This is not surprising. A lot of schizophrenics start to show symptoms in late teens or early 20s. Labels: deinstitutionalization Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Prophetess A posting over at the Liberty Zone from last year that correctly predicted what would happen: Wednesday, February 01, 2006These are the times that I'm sure Nicki wishes that she had been wrong. Labels: gun rights Just a Reminder, The Next Time A European Gets Huffy... About these gun mass murders being an American problem. From BBC, April 26, 2002: Eighteen people died when an expelled former pupil went on a shooting spree at his school in the eastern German city of Erfurt.And this account from the New York Times in 1995: After murdering three relatives at home, a teen-ager walked to the next village today and calmly opened fire on a quiet town square, killing nine more people before turning the gun on himself.From the Moscow Times: GALI, Abkhazia -- One night in June at a lonely Russian post in the small village of Sida, Sergeant Artur Vaganov, 22, of the Russian peacekeeping force here, woke up to commit mass murder.And this 2002 Time article: Last week's mass murder of eight city councilors in a Paris suburb left not only a traumatized community and bereft survivors. Coming in the thick of a presidential campaign, alsoit, set France searching for political meaning in a fundamentally senseless act. Both major candidates, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin and President Jacques Chirac, were on the scene before sun-up, condemning the attack in the same words, as "a murderous folly." Yet by the end of the day the two sides were enmeshed in a furious debate over the propriety of drawing any connection between the desperate act of a deranged man and "insecurity," a central theme of the campaign. Then that deranged man, Richard Durn, managed to commit suicide while in police custody, and the focus shifted again. How could government be so dysfunctional as to allow the avowedly homicidal and suicidal Durn to own and use guns and then make his dramatic exit?You want more examples to show that this is not peculiarly or even especially American? See here. Labels: gun rights The Copycat Effect That's the name of both a web page and book about how coverage of tragedies pushes some over the top: Sadly, I saw this coming.Those who have read my article in Journal of Mass Media Ethics aren't surprised by this--it has happened before, and it will happen again--especially the more media attention that this gets. For all the attention that guns get as an "American" problem, there's this news story: TOKYO - The mayor of the Japanese city of Nagasaki was shot to death in a brazen attack Tuesday by an organized crime chief apparently enraged that the city refused to compensate him after his car was damaged at a public works construction site, news agencies reported. Labels: gun rights, media manipulation The Importance of Early Identification of Mental Illness Problems In some cases, early identification of mental illness can lead to a cure; in other cases, it can lead to lives saved: The gunman suspected of carrying out the Virginia Tech massacre that left 33 people dead was described Tuesday as a sullen loner whose creative writing in English class was so disturbing that he was referred to the school's counseling service.Do you have a student who is writing really worrisome, frightening stuff? Maybe this isn't a sign of creativity, but of someone who is seriously troubled. UPDATE: There's a bit more detail here about the "disturbing writing"--and all I can think is--was Cho a victim? Might this have led to the depression and rage? Lucinda Roy, a co-director of the creative writing program at Virginia Tech, taught Cho in a poetry class in fall of 2005 and later worked with him one-on-one after she became concerned about his behavior and themes in his writings. Labels: child sexual abuse, deinstitutionalization Why Did I Not Read This Earlier? And why can't I find any news articles but this one from the Toledo Blade that mention it? Ron Bliss thought he had found proof The Blade suppresses news that doesn't fit its "slant left" agenda.Hmmm. A Muslim goes on a killing spree in a shopping mall, shouts "Allah Akbar" while doing so--and this doesn't get much press. This would seem to have some relevance, I think. You know, there was some unpleasantness a few years ago involving the World Trade Center, and I think the people that caused the unpleasantness might have said something like that before things got unpleasant. Imagine if the killer had been a member of the World Church of the Creator, and had been yelling, "Heil Hitler" while shooting people in a mall. Do you suppose that newspapers would have left out that little detail? I rather doubt it. No more unarmed shopping for me. Yes, he was probably just mentally ill, and fixated on religion as his justification for killing people, and not an al-Qaeda operative. But it makes me wonder if a mass murderer did something similar, and was an al-Qaeda operative, if we would be allowed to know that. Thanks to Classical Values for bringing this to my attention. UPDATE: This report from KSL TV in Salt Lake City claims that this is incorrect: The Salt Lake Police Department always expects rumors when something big like last week's shooting happens. We heard a big one. It was even spread by Congressman Chris Cannon on the Doug Wright show this morning.Does anyone have the video? It must be extremely poor audio if "Ogden Police Department" sounds like "Allah Akbar." Labels: media manipulation, terrorism Interesting Commentary By A Virginia Tech Student What makes it especially interesting is the date--last August: On Aug. 21 at about 9:20 a.m., my graduate-level class was evacuated from the Squires Student Center. We were interrupted in class and not informed of anything other than the following words: "You need to get out of the building." Labels: gun rights Killer Was Legal Resident I was hoping that the first reports--that he was here on a student visa--were correct, because that would have made his purchases illegal. If illegal, there might be some hope of figuring out to prevent these in the future. But this news report indicates otherwise: He is Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old resident alien of the United States, as first reported by ABC News.The first murders, while horrifying, are at least in the range of normal human behavior. He was angry about being jilted, and murdered his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend. But chaining the doors shut on classrooms and murdering everyone inside two hours later? This is just incomprehensibly evil. He left a note. I would be curious to read what it says. UPDATE: I notice that he was living in the dorms--and thus his possession of the handguns violated the Virginia Tech rules about having guns on campus. Pretty clearly, this didn't stop him from doing so. This is one of those relatively rare cases where there seems to be no change to the law that could have prevented this except a complete ban on handgun ownership--and that is simply not possible. Eliminating the "no guns" rule of Virginia Tech might have made a difference, but I would not hold out a high probability for this. Labels: gun rights Monday, April 16, 2007
Preventing Massacres There are no perfect solutions. Yes, as I mentioned earlier today, Virginia Tech's ban on concealed license holders being armed on campus meant that there was no chance that any of the killer's victims could shoot back. What would happen if such a law had not been in place? Most of the students, being under 21, are not eligible for carry permits. But most of the grad students, most of the staff, and pretty much all of the faculty would be eligible. I know more than a few faculty, either full-time or adjuncts at various colleges around the country who have carry permits. In those states where the laws allows it, some of them carry on campus. Many of the others would do so, at least when teaching night classes. Would this have prevented this tragedy? It's hard to say. In most states, about 3-5% of the population eventually get a concealed carry permit. A few carry all the time; some carry frequently; a few carry very seldom. I would not say that there was a strong chance that repealing Virginia Tech's rule, and similar ones around the country, would make a big difference. But it would make a big difference to anyone who survived because one victim could fight back! Texas state rep. Suzanna Gratia-Hupp became a vigorous advocate of concealed carry because she sat in a Luby's, watching a monster murder her father and mother. Suzanna had been carrying a handgun--illegally, because Texas law did not allow it--for some time. When she walked into that Luby's for lunch, she wasn't carrying--too afraid that she might get arrested. She was in a position to shoot and save lives that day--but the law discouraged her. At Standard Gravure Printing Plant in Memphis, Tennessee, in a celebrated mass murder in 1989, one of the victims was also illegally carrying a handgun--because Tennessee did not yet make provision for her to obtain a permit. Because she was breaking the law, she delayed pulling her gun until it was too late--and another opportunity to stop a murder spree early on was lost. At Pearl High School, in Mississippi, the assistant principal brought an end to Luke Woodham's murders by retrieving a pistol from his vehicle. Similarly, a student at Appalachian Law School stopped another mass murder by retrieving a gun from his car. UPDATE: A reminder: if someone commits mass murder with a weapon other than a gun, the national news media usually ignore it. For example, Hector Escudero started a fire at a casino in Puerto Rico in December 1987 as part of labor union activism, and killed 96 people. Julio Gonzalez threw $1 worth of gasoline into an illegal night club in New York City in April 1990 to get back at his girlfriend, and killed 87 people. These stories received almost no national news coverage at the time--while mass murders that were substantially smaller received vastly more coverage. Why? Gonzalez and Escudero's crimes didn't advance the cause of gun control. You can read my paper that was published by the Journal of Mass Media Ethics here for an examination of the role that excessive media coverage played in causing at least one of the mass murders of that era. UPDATE 2: I sure hope someone is thinking long and hard about this today: A Virginia Tech official in 2006 praised the defeat of a proposal to allow students with state-issued concealed handgun permits to carry their handguns on college campuses in Virginia. At least 30 unarmed students were killed on the VA Tech campus Monday morning by a single gunman.Well I'm sure that they did feel safe. They just weren't safe. Would this law change have solved the problem? It is really hard to say. Perhaps none of the victims would have had carry permits; perhaps none would have carried on campus; perhaps none of those who had permits and were actually carrying would have been in the line of fire. But pretty clearly, keeping it unlawful didn't help the 32 people murdered today. Michelle Malkin publishes an email from a student who survived--and it is a reminder that sitting in fear is less effective than doing something: It was just a regular day in class; the door was open and we heard a pop-pop-popping noise. Sounded like some kind of construction but it was getting disruptive so we went to close the door, and one of the girls stepped out in the hallway to see what it was. She saw the gun and ran back inside the room and slammed the door shut and we all got down on the floor. Labels: gun self-defense Humor A fairly impressive video of a power substation transformer blowing up, but what makes this "humor" is the comment of one of the viewers: ...but did the squirrel yell "Allah Akbar!", before zapping the transformer? Swedish Soldier Injured in Afghanistan This was a complete surprise to me: The Swedish military says one of its soldiers has been injured after an explosive device blew up under vehicles carrying troops in Afghanistan.Except Sweden isn't part of NATO. They remained even more scrupulously neutral throughout the Cold War than they did during World War II (when they allowed German troops to cross their country to invade Norway). Labels: terrorism Bizarre Conspiracy Theory About Don Imus Pravda is reporting that Imus's firing was part of the conspiracy by "US War Leaders." I can't call it bizarre; then I would need another word to replace bizarre. Labels: conspiracy theory Mass Murder at Virginia Tech The news coverage is, as you might expect, rather confused. This account indicates that there were two separate shootings on opposite sides of campus, about two hours apart--and that while the gunman is dead, the police are searching the campus: Investigators also say the gunman is dead... But they don't know if he was a student.Huh? I can see why two separate incidents on opposite sides of campus might lead them to wonder about this. This news story indicates that the lockdown was lifted after the first shooting: Aimee Kanode, a freshman from Martinsville, said the shooting happened on the 4th floor of West Ambler Johnston dormitory, one floor above her room. Kanode's resident assistant knocked on her door about 8 a.m. to notify students to stay put. This statement from Virginia Tech's website indicates that carry permit holders aren't allowed to be armed on campus: 2.2 Prohibition of WeaponsWhat a lot of good that did. The killer obviously didn't care about this rule; the victims were guaranteed to be disarmed. UPDATE: Why would the police end the lockdown if they had not arrested the shooter from the first incident? Were there two shooters, which the continuing search would suggest? If this incident involved two bombs set off two hours apart to get first responders, I would assume al-Qaeda. UPDATE 2: Hmmm. Two bomb threats against engineering buildings last week (where one of the massacres too place today). This is looking less and less like a conventional lone gunman. UPDATE 3: This just gets weirder and weirder. This news report says: University president Steger said that police have not officially tied together the two shootings.What are the chances that two people go on shooting rampages the same day on the same campus? If these aren't tied together, I would be very surprised. UPDATE 4: This blogger at Virginia Tech discusses the distance between the two shootings, and reports what are probably just rumors now: Apparently the gunman was looking for his girlfriend, couldn't find her in the dorm and 2 hours later went to Norris Hall to look for her. She wasn't there so he started killing students execution-style.This is why I try to be armed anywhere that I legally can be armed. This is exactly the situation where one armed student, faculty, or staff could have cut this short. Labels: gun self-defense Photovoltaic Calculator This New York Times article makes the point that even with significant tax subsidies, photovoltaic power generation still doesn't make much sense: With a $2,000 federal tax credit and generous rebates from states like New Jersey and California, it has never cost less to install a solar power system.That calculator is very well organized and easy to use--and it shows what my own calculations have concluded--even with the tax incentives provided by both federal and Idaho governments, and assuming that the solar system added value to my home, and assuming continuing inflation in electricity costs, it would take 20 years to pay for itself. Without adding value to my home--28 years. How long will such a system last? We really don't know how long current photovoltaic cells will last. The calculator assumes a 25 year system life. Photovoltaics do apparently decline somewhat with time, and I would expect that at least some of the non-photovoltaic parts will require repair during that period of time. It just doesn't make any sense here--and I suspect that it doesn't make sense for most American homes. So here's the question that I always ask: how do we know how much net gain we are getting from photovoltaics, relative to the electricity used to make them? That solar calculator claims a net gain of 85 tons of carbon over the 25 year lifetime of the system--but it does not appear that they have calculated the carbon burned to make photovoltaics. Photovoltaics are made from semiconductor grade silicon--which requires a lot of energy to refine (and I think a lot of still comes from Brazilian beach sand, so include transportation costs). How much electricity do we use to make photovoltatics? I am inclined to think that they are a net gain, but how much of one? The cost of photovoltaic cells reflects, among other things, the cost of the energy that goes into making and transporting them. Are we actually coming out ahead, and by how much? George Will points out: The Prius hybrid is, of course, fuel-efficient. There are, however, environmental costs to mining and smelting (in Canada) 1,000 tons a year of zinc for the battery-powered second motor, and the shipping of the zinc 10,000 miles -- trailing a cloud of carbon -- to Wales for refining and then to China for turning it into the component that is then sent to a battery factory in Japan.One of the hints that George Will may be right about this is the cost of the various hybrid vehicles--a cost that reflects at least partly the energy that goes into making one. One of the great failures of socialism, not just in providing consumer goods, but in the environmental devastation that it made (and which environmentalists ignored, because it didn't suit their political need to attack capitalism), was the lack of information from free market prices. The Soviet Union destroyed the Aral Sea ecosystem by diverting so much water to cotton growing that the fish there died. The fish packing plants on the shores of the Aral Sea were now out of fish to pack--but rather than ask hard questions, the Soviet Union went ahead and flew fish in from the Baltic to keep the packing plants operational. A system that ignores prices, and what they tell us about scarcity and demand, is doomed to make serious mistakes like this. Labels: enviromental lunacy The Global Warming Propagandists Sure Have a Lot of Money to Burn You will notice that one of the ads appearing at the top of my blog is from a "national security/global warming" group. Now, there is a legitimate national security argument for energy independence, at least independent of regions where the population wears its turbans too tight, but tying this to global warming is pretty silly--and I expect that this advertising is just wasted. The only advertising example more ineffective was probably when the People's Republic of Mongolia rented a libertarian mailing list in the early 1980s to try and sell 24 karat gold postage stamps. If global warming folks want to waste money advertising here, that's just fine with me! It is a reminder of the enormous amount of money that the billionaires are throwing into the global warming hysteria. You have to ask yourself: why do the obscenely rich want something done about this, if not to become even more obscenely rich? The alternative is that they want the rest of us to reduce our "carbon footprint" so that they can continue flying private jets and otherwise consuming fossil fuels in the way that only the obscenely rich liberals can do. One of the more troubling lessons of the twentieth century is how easy it is for cynical, dishonest, and manipulative politicians to get idealistic and naive young people behind them. The 1932 German elections were the first in which 18 year olds were allowed to vote, and the National Socialists did very well at getting those votes by using the slogan, "Common Needs before Individual Needs." For lots of people, all you have to say is, "We're doing this for altruistic reasons" and their brains just shut off. Labels: global warming Sunday, April 15, 2007
The Triumph of Ideology Over Humanity There's a famous quotation from Lucy in the Peanuts cartoon strip: "I love humanity. It's just people I can't stand!" Some of you are old enough to remember this tragedy. In late 1987, Mayor Koch of New York City decided that homeless people living steam grates in freezing weather was unacceptable. He phrased it in terms of the humanitarian crisis; cynics suggested that it made New York City look bad to have homeless people living under these conditions. Regardless of his motivation (and I'll assume for the moment the better of Mayor Koch), these circumstances were unacceptable. It was clear that many of these homeless people were mentally ill, not just from their behavior, but because how sane could you be and voluntarily live on the streets of New York in freezing weather? One particular woman was the first target of Mayor Koch's effort, and she was named Joyce Brown. To my surprise, many news articles from newspapers and magazines of the time are available online concerning her, such as this November 23, 1987 Time article: Joyce Brown, a 40-year-old former stenographer, has lived for the past year on a Manhattan sidewalk. Crouched over a hot-air vent, she fended off winter sleet. Panhandling, she dined for $7 a day on juice, a quart of milk, a pint of ice cream and a chicken cutlet from the corner delicatessen. She relieved herself in the gutter, huddled beneath a tattered coat. Crazy or not, Brown claims to know what she wants. "Some people are street people," she says. "That's the life they choose to lead."The psychiatrists at the mental hospital concluded that she was paranoid schizophrenic--but the New York Civil Liberties Union filed suit on her behalf, arguing that she should not be held against her will, nor required to take antipsychotic medications that might have helped her back to mental health: Psychiatrists brought in by the New York Civil Liberties Union, which represented Miss Brown, said she either suffered from less serious mental problems or had worked out ''a fearless, independent life style'' that worked for her.Now, I am not a big fan of busybody Big Government--but the descriptions of her behavior--ritualistically burning money give to her by passersby even though begging for money to food and cigarettes, living on a steam grate in falling sleet--this definitely crosses the line from "eccentric" to "mentally ill." The New York Civil Liberties Union won their case, getting Joyce Brown the freedom to return back to her steam grate: After her release from a mental hospital in January, Joyce Brown seemed to have a new start in life. As one of the first homeless people picked up in Mayor Ed Koch's program to take people suspected of being mentally ill off the street, Brown won a controversial test case when a judge ruled that she could not be forced to submit to treatment. The former "Billie Boggs," as she called herself, appeared on Donahue and lectured to Harvard Law School students on the plight of the homeless. She found housing in a somewhat seedy hotel in Times Square.If you want to know why I hold the ACLU and its affiliates in such utter contempt, it is situations like this, where their zealous enthusiasm (in the negative, nineteenth century sense of that word) leads to results utterly disastrous for their clients. Labels: ACLU, deinstitutionalization Kreimer v. Morristown (3d Cir. 1992) This is a somewhat famous case involving homelessness and libraries largely because of the elitist, some would say "out of touch with reality" decision from the federal district judge who first ruled against the Morristown library's code of conduct. The circumstances that led to the conduct code in 1989 are ones that should not be a surprise to you if you live in any major metropolitan area and use a library. Morristown's library had a number of homeless people using it as, effectively, a day shelter. One particular person, named Kreimer, sounds from the description like he was mentally disturbed. The code of conduct was created specifically to deal with him: 1. Patrons shall be engaged in normal activities associated with the use of a public library while in the building. Patrons not engaged in reading, studying, or using library materials may be asked to leave the building. Loitering will not be tolerated.I get the impression that Kreimer's problem was not that he wasn't fashionably attired, or chuckling too loudly to himself. Rule #5 above suggests someone who was causing considerable fear by staring at people, following them around, and talking loudly to himself. As is not surprising for homeless people, he wasn't bathing, and probably smelled very bad indeed. The ACLU, of course, filed suit against these rules. At trial, the federal district judge, named Sarokin, ruled against Morristown Public Library, claiming that they were violating his right of free speech: Moreover, apart from their governmental designation as a public forum, public libraries have traditionally functioned as a public forum for the communication of written ideas. Thus, a public library is not only a designated public forum, but also a "quintessential,"6 "traditional" public forum whose accessibility affects the bedrock of our democratic system. A place where ideas are communicated freely through the written word is as integral to a democracy and to First Amendment rights as an available public space where citizens can communicate their ideas through the spoken word.Oddly enough, it wasn't Kreimer's talking that was the violation of the right of free speech (imagine "Shhhh!" as a violation of the First Amendment), but not being able to go to the library to read what others were saying. Not surprisingly, Sarokin also found that the rules were a violation of equal protection and due process. I won't dignify the "equal protection" idiocy with an extended examination; these rules applied equally to everyone that behaved badly and smelled offensively at the library. You don't have to be homeless or mentally ill to fail these tests, as anyone who has been in big city public library the last few years can attest. Maybe I am just very aware of it because my mother and three of my sisters worked in public libraries, but it is astonishing how loud both kids and some adults are in public libraries today; it wasn't like this when I was a kid, or a young adult. Sarokin's decision contains a rather memorable statement that is, in one sense, correct: the public library was trying to deal with horrifying social problems in a less than wonderful way. But in another sense, it was precisely attitudes like Sarokin's, and the ACLU's rather bizarre notion of constitutional rights, that created the need for rules like this: The greatness of our country lies in tolerating speech with which we do not agree; that same toleration must extend to people, particularly where the cause of revulsion may be of our own making. If we wish to shield our eyes and noses from the homeless, we should revoke their condition, not their library cards.Yes, Judge Sarokin, you are exactly right. But it is liberals like you that created this mess where large numbers of mentally ill people were dumped on the streets, unable to care for themselves, to decline into a state of ripeness and often, death. Anyway, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Sarokin's decision in 1992. However: according to this source, in the meantime, Morristown had settled with Kreimer for $230,000 for violating his constitutional right to stare at people, follow them around the library, and smell bad. I suspect that this settlement is why libraries adopted a kid glove approach to dealing with misbehaving people in the library--because what city can afford to pay settlements like this? A friend who worked at Santa Rosa Public Library told me of the horrifying problems that they had because their policy was to tolerate all sorts of behavior rather than ask someone to leave. She described one guy who she noticed was sitting at one of the tables--with his pants down around his knees. She brought this to the attention of her boss, who rather than call the police to report an exhibitionist, walked over to the table instead and asked, "Sir, are you properly attired for the library?" I would love to get an authoritative indicator that Morristown settled out of court--and why they did so before the 3rd Circuit had overturned Sarokin's ruling. UPDATE: That was quick! Ted Frank of Overlawyered.com gave me this link to a list of newspaper articles that mention the settlement--and that by the time that Morristown had finished winning this absurd lawsuit that the ACLU filed, Morristown had paid more than a million dollars in legal representation and the settlement with Kreimer. It turns out that Mr. Kreimer has a new occupation: suing government agencies for hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars for discrimination against the homeless. It makes you wonder: why is he still homeless? Or is he only homeless so that he has a basis to file suits? Labels: ACLU, deinstitutionalization, due process, equal protection, freedom of speech |
