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Your Liberty or Your Gun? A Survey of Psychiatrist Understanding of Mental Health Prohibitors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2021

Cara Newlon ,
Ian Ayres  and
Brian Barnett
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Abstract

This first-of-its-kind national survey of 485 psychiatrists in nine states and the District of Columbia (DC) finds substantial evidence of clinicians being uninformed, misinformed, and misinforming patients of their gun rights regarding involuntary commitments and voluntary inpatient admissions. A significant percentage of psychiatrists (36.9%) did not understand that an involuntary civil commitment triggered the loss of gun rights, and the majority of psychiatrists in states with prohibitors on voluntary admissions (57%) and emergency holds (56%) were unaware that patients would lose gun rights upon voluntary admission or temporary commitment. Moreover, the survey found evidence that psychiatrists may use gun rights to negotiate “voluntary” commitments with patients: 15.9% of respondents reported telling patients they could preserve their gun rights by permitting themselves to be voluntarily admitted for treatment, in lieu of being involuntarily committed. The results raise questions of whether psychiatrists obtained full informed consent for voluntary patient admissions, and suggest that some medical providers in states with voluntary admission prohibitor laws may unwittingly deprive their patients of a constitutional right. The study calls into question the fairness of state prohibitor laws as policy, and — at minimum — indicates an urgent need for psychiatrist training on their state gun laws.

Type
Online Articles
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 48 , Issue S4: Gun Violence in America: An Interdisciplinary Examination , Winter 2020 , pp. 155 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2020

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