RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Gun Laws and the Involuntarily Committed: A California Road Map
JF Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online
JO J Am Acad Psychiatry Law
FD American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
SP 545
OP 548
VO 37
IS 4
A1 Sohrab Zahedi
A1 Robert Burchuk
A1 David C. Stone
A1 Alex Kopelowicz
YR 2009
UL http://jaapl.org/content/37/4/545.abstract
AB The 2007 incident at Virginia Tech brought the question of gun ownership by the mentally ill to the forefront of public attention. Moreover, it underscored the potentially devastating consequences of the imperfect connection between federal and state laws that apply to the right of gun ownership by a psychiatric patient. The laws are complex, and, as demonstrated in this article, conflicting. We present a case report of an involuntarily committed patient in the state of California, and discuss details of state and federal laws that applied to him.