Senator Diane Feinstein on PTSD and Gun Ownership

Senator Diane Feinstein has repeatedly pushed for legislation to greatly restrict the freedoms protected by the Second Amendment.

She has stated her concern that veterans with PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) should not have access to guns as a matter of public safety.

While I agree that anyone with severe mental or emotional problems can potentially be a risk if they have access to firearms, this needs to be handled on a case-by-case basis, and not some overarching characterization that will be enforced by law or executive order.

On March 7, 2013, Senator Feinstein addressed the Senate Judiciary Committee about the need for stricter gun control.

A March 8, 2013 article by Real Clear Politics said that Senator Feinstein noted the rise in PTSD cases and said "that a veteran may be mentally ill and should be prevented from purchasing firearms".

Senator Feinstein is especially opposed to ownership of assault rifle look-alikes such as the AR-15, etc.

She also said,

"The problem with expanding this is that, you know, with the advent of PTSD, which I think is a new phenomenon as a product of the Iraq War, it’s not clear how the seller or transferrer of a firearm covered by this bill would verify that an individual was a member, or a veteran, and that there was no impairment of that individual with respect to having a weapon like this. " (emphasis mine).

I am by no means a fan of Senator Feinstein, and her statement reinforces my opinion of her. Her stating that PTSD is a new phenomenon as product of the Iraq War shows how uninformed she is. I assume she's reasonably intelligent, but maybe she, like Nancy Pelosi, suffers from "foot in mouth" syndrome. 

PTSD, under various appellations, is hardly a new phenomenon, nor is it limited to people who have experienced combat. It is a severe anxiety disorder that can result from experiencing or witnessing any event that causes psychological trauma. This includes physical, emotional, or sexual abuse; physical assault, serving as a soldier in combat, or Emergency Room personnel, EMTs, police officers, etc.


In Shakespeare's play Henry the IV, written around 1597, Lady Percy's soliloquy in Part 1, act 2, is considered by psychiatrist Jonathan Shay "an unusually accurate description of the symptom constellation of PTSD". (Shay, Jonathan Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character, Scribner, 1994; pp. 165-66.)

Some identified risk factors for development of PTSD among Vietnam veterans include:

- Hispanic ethnicity
- War-zone service
- Asocial behavior in childhood 
- Recent stressful life events

Factors that help protect against PTSD include:
- Japanese-American ethnicity
- High school degree or college education
- Positive father to child relationship
- Social support at homecoming

(Taken from (Schnurr PP, Lunney CA, Sengupta A (2004). "Risk factors for the development versus maintenance of posttraumatic stress disorder". J Trauma Stress 17 (2): 85–95.)

It has been recognized in soldier's in other wars as well. 19th century medical doctors diagnosed the condition as "exhaustion" and treated it by relieving the soldier from frontline duty until the symptoms subsided.

In the same period it was called "railway spine" to describe people who had been in train crashes and showed PTSD-like symptoms.

In the wars of the 20th century it was referred to as "battle fatigue", "shell shock", or "traumatic war neurosis".

The soldier assaulted by General George S. Patton in the famous slapping incident was suffering from PTSD.

Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Annette Becker, stated,

"One-tenth of mobilized American men were hospitalized for mental disturbances between 1942 and 1945, and after thirty-five days of uninterrupted combat, 98% of them manifested psychiatric disturbances in varying degrees."

(World War One – A New Kind of War | Part II, From 14 - 18 Understanding the Great War, by Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau, Annette Becker)


It can be seen that PTSD is certainly not a new phenomenon, and that a larger population than just veterans are risk factors for the disorder. 

But then again, maybe Senator Feinstein knows all of this and is using the "risk" of PTSD as a means of denying the purchase or ownership of firearms to a large portion of the population in general. If applied with equanimity, this would include the first responders to the 9-11 attacks, the people that suffered from Super Storm Sandy and Katrina, as well as many respected former military leaders such as Colin Powell, John Glenn, and Norman Schwarzkopf, and political leaders such as Gabrielle Giffords.

FWIW,

Smitty