Initiative 1491: Con: Initiative unfairly targets the mentally ill

Unfortunately, Initiative 1491 includes language in the very first section associating mental illness with mass shootings and other gun violence. In fact, the description on your ballot will identify mental illness as the first criteria for removal of firearms from an individual.

An illness should not be used as criteria for predicting future violent acts. Instead, a person’s current behavior is the best indicator of their danger to themselves or others. By making mental illness a criterion for firearms removal, I-1491 stigmatizes people with mental illnesses as being violent. This prejudicial characterization furthers our society’s misconceptions about mental illness.

The fact is that mentally ill people are 10 times more likely to be victims of violent crime than the general population. And 95 percent to 97 percent of all violent crimes are committed by people without a mental illness.

Although the sponsors of the initiative have now tried to remove all of these references to mental illness from their website, the language still remains in the initiative and cannot be changed.

I-1491 duplicates new laws and doesn’t provide a treatment model, whereas Washington state’s “Joel’s Law,” passed in 2015, already provides protection for individuals and those close to them by providing families a legal process for obtaining an involuntary commitment to a mental health facility for treatment when a person is determined to be a danger to themselves or others. An individual with a record of an involuntary commitment beyond 14 days loses the right to possess firearms indefinitely.

There are also new Washington state laws that train medical professionals and educational professionals to identify, intervene and get treatment for potentially suicidal persons. I-1491 does nothing to provide treatment. It simply takes guns away from what it identifies as potentially dangerous persons and hopes they won’t use other lethal means or acquire guns illegally.

This initiative undermines due process by allowing for ex parte orders, which are expedited hearings and judgments without required notification of the accused to be present to defend themselves. These temporary orders can even be issued by lower courts, such as municipal courts, by judges with little or no experience in issuing this type of order. Petitions to the court can be submitted by a broad set of individuals, including household members, police, dating partners and former roommates. Unsupported statements by a potentially hostile petitioner can be used as sole evidence in issuing the extreme risk protection order. Additionally, no public defender is provided, so the accused must pay for their own defense.

A study by the National Institute of Health describes how little is known about how to profile a mass shooter. Voter’s desperate hope that this initiative would help to identify shooters and prevent mass shooting tragedies is a promise that I-1491 just cannot deliver.

In summary, I-1491 targets the mentally ill. (What demographic will be next?) It ignores existing laws, provides no treatment model, compromises due process, and promises to reduce mass shootings without any scientific evidence of how to profile a mass shooter.

David Combs is a spokesman for the Know I-1491 campaign.