Side-by-side: SAFE ACT and ‘illegal’ OMH Guidelines enacting the ACT

How OMH violates the SAFE ACT and threatens our civil rights in the process:
SAFE ACT:	OMH [ILLEGAL] GUIDELINES:
Section 9.46 – Report of names made by mental health professionals: ·         “Information can ONLY BE USED to determine whether a gun license should be revoked or to deny a request for a gun license.” Subdivision (j) of section 7.09 of the MHL: ·         Information can only be used for background check of person attempting to purchase a firearm.   NOTE: All names in report go to FBI.	OMH: ·         “will also review each 9.46 report to determine whether to direct an emergency “removal” and transport to a hospital for a psychiatric examination and possible admission.”   Meaning: OMH will pick up ALL and EACH person in the report, which can only be used for background check, to involuntarily committing them to psych hospital.
The Act states who is allowed to report a person and when: ·         “Only physicians, psychologists, registered nurses, and licensed clinical social workers allowed to make reports during the course of their direct and current treatmentto the person.”	OMH allows “designated” clerk or IT technician to report a person: ·         if he/she “has reason to believe that the patient is subject to SAFE Act reporting requirements”. Meaning: Any report made by these unauthorized reporters constitutes FALSE reporting, penalized by the SAFE ACT.
Gov. Cuomo’ stated that the purpose of the law is to check the background of people who are trying to buy a gun: ·         ” The SAFE Act stops criminals and the dangerously mentally ill from buying a gun by requiring universal background checks”.	Based on reports to NYS Senate, OMH directs psych hospital directors to automatically report ALL adults and children on admission or discharge. As a consequence: ·         the names of 6K psych patients, including 11 years old children, who are not applying for gun permit, are now in the report for background check. FYI: 11 years old children cannot buy guns, especially if hospitalized. Hello!

Note: Once your name has incorrectly or illegally reported to the system, you are stuck. There are NO mechanism for a person to get the name out. Just as with the ‘no-fly list’, where you can’t get the government to delete the name of a child incorrectly put in the list.

The ONLY protections are for the PROVIDERS. They are EXEMPT from the consequences to a person of incorrectly, illegally, intentional reporting his/her name.

Why we should stand against the SAFE ACT.

Why we stand against the SAFE ACT

We want our state and our nation to address the causes of the current nation-wide wave of violence effectively and with fair policies.

But, it is unfair to point at people with mental disabilities as the cause of all that violence and as a threat to ‘national security’. We are none of those. The statistics show that we are more likely to suffer the violence inherent in the prejudice against people with all types of disabilities, than to dish it out.

The SAFE Act was passed in 20 minutes late at night and right after the horrific Boston shooting last year. Clearly, it was intended as a quick placebo for a terrified society demanding action from politicians to control what it incorrectly perceives as the source of the wave of violence: guns and mental illness.

So, we must repudiate any policy that scapegoats us in the interest of political gains for our current elected officials of both parties at both the state and national levels.

The SAFE Act is not a law; it is a witch-hunt and ‘saves’ no one.

The SAFE Act is being used to limit the civil rights of, not only the ‘persistent and chronically mentally ill’, but of anyone who may seek mental health services for the first time. (See Side by side: SAFE Act and OMH.) The names reported per the SAFE Act mandate goes to the FBI, and from there they quietly seep up to Department of Homeland Security list of ‘possible terrorists’. In the ‘land of the free’, being in that list is terrifying in itself.

The causes of violence in a society are deep and complicated. But this much we can say: the government and its bureaucratic agencies inflict violence on the population in a form that passes as ‘lawful’ and ‘for your own good’, in the form of POLITICAL violence. Daily police brutality, violation to personal integrity by police searching your body  to protect you from the ‘terrorists’, 911 calls for the police to pick up an EDP (’emotionally disturbed person’) usually ends with the EDP being killed by the police…this is a system out of control.

See next how OMH is violating the SAFE ACT to grab power to limit our civil rights.

NY Safe Act: gun law gives Office of Mental Health power to see the future [wink]

Children 11 years old automatically placed in the gun registry, all people admitted to inpatient psych hospitals and all people DISCHARGED from psych hospitals, all their names in the registry AUTOMATICALLY…sorry but it is NOT in fascist Germany. Is it the Office of Mental Health (OMH)? We must act against this outrage, but keep reading.

According to testimony of a Mr. Wolkenbreit, counsel to the New York State Conference of Local Mental Hygiene Directors, Inc. and other mental health providers and civil libertarians at a state Assembly committee hearing  about the mental health provisions of the NY SAFE Act (watch the video at the end of this post):

1) Everybody already admitted, even before the passing of the Safe Act, and everybody admitted to a psych hospital after its passing have been placed in the gun registry, AND at DISCHARGE TOO:

“the state took the position that ALL persons admitted to a state psychiatric hospital met the criteria of 9.46 simply by virtue of their admission...”

“based on POTENTIAL risk standards, hospital administration or counsel have RECOMMENDED or REQUIRED that ALL persons admitted with mental illness diagnosis  be reported…”

“because of amount of reports [received], DCJS is forced to accept them as VALID.”

“OMH wants reporting on discharge and admission…[this is] beyond the scope or reasonable or useful”. Mr. Stein

2) names of  all CHILDREN 11 YEARS OLD and up are been put in the registry automatically, and the absurd reason to include their names:

“OMH is requiring ALL mental health hospitals to report admissions of ALL 11 years old children or older…”

“because it is possible that a 16 years old be admitted to the military with parental consent and be discharged at 16 years old and apply for a gun permit“

Based on that ‘reasoning’, it is impossible not to sense  paranoia in the attitude of OMH’s administrators who ordered these procedures. They are now engaged in predicting the future: let’s ‘convict’ 11 years old kids NOW since surely they (boys and girls) will be enrolled in the army and surely will come out as  ‘terrorists’. Geez!

3) I mentioned in this blog, when the gun law was passed, that the gun law is NOT  a mandate to gun sellers to do a background check. A Mr. Stein (lawyer, I think) came to a similar conclusion during the hearing:

” Safe Act looks like a mandate but it isn’t…it is not an ‘authorization’ nor a ‘mandate’…[because it doesn’t have] mandate language like 33.13″

“it is NOT a mandate because it doesn’t have a ‘must’, [there are] no penalties.”

3) And, as I have been saying ALL along in this blog, Ms. Haroules of the NY Civil Liberties Union said that these laws:

“protect the providers, not the recipients.”

She also said, paraphrasing, that the way in which this gun law was passed, without input from consumers, made a mockery of the legislative process and the system. I said that too before.

That is in a nut shell what transpired in that hearing. In my view, this ought to be in the mainstream media. OMH has, once again, betrayed the people it is mandated to protect.

The political consequences of all this hanky panky with the gun law is hard to ignore. It is like a virus running across the US: dossiers being made of every citizen, classified in this or that category, all by a nation gripped by paranoia.

I have left out comments about stigma and repression and other problems, mostly because I’m focusing here on the political aspect of the issue: the power of the government to control our lives and the police state. I have mentioned all this in other posts. So…

We shall overcome, it will take time, but we shall overcome.

The only way to bring OMH to ‘task’ is by consumers regaining their collective voice and marching in front of OMH with their denunciations: CLEAN THAT REGISTRY! TAKE ALL THOSE NAME OUT!

That’s what the Citywide Mental Health Project is planning to do.The Tea Party and gun lovers had their rally this past weekend in Albany against this registry and law. Over a thousand people attended. WHAT ABOUT US?!

If you are interested in helping us organize a rally in front of OMH, contact us at:

citywidementalhealthproject@live.com

Links:

[2] http://www.nysenate.gov/committee/mental-health-and-developmental-disabilities

[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSae–ouoGE