Dianne Feinstein Ignites Debate About Veterans With PTSD and Guns

[Lakhota]

The Democratic Senator’s refusal to exempt veterans from a proposed assault weapon ban raises hackles from the right, reports Jamie Reno.

While the gun debate has been raging in Washington ever since the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in mid-December, the one thing that has been conspicuously absent from the conversation is veterans’ accessibility to guns. No one inside the Beltway appeared willing to broach the topic and risk offending America's 22 million former service men and women.

Feinstein explained: “The problem with expanding this is that, you know, with the advent of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), which I think is a new phenomenon as a product of the Iraq War, it’s not clear how the seller or transferer 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. I think you have to – if you’re going to do this, find a way that veterans who are incapacitated for one reason or another mentally, don’t have access to this kind of weapon."

Not surprisingly, these comments have ignited a firestorm of angry responses that have spread across social media and the conservative and pro-gun blogosphere.

Still, were Feinstein's comments really that offensive, outrageous and irresponsible? Or were they legitimate questions about veterans’ access to guns?

Dr. Andrea Macari, a clinical psychologist and assistant professor of psychology at Suffolk County Community College in New York who specializes in PTSD and suicide, says the biggest issue with veterans and PTSD is they get the treatment they need and deserve.

Meantime, Macari says the most important thing to take away from the debate that Feinstein initiated is that society needs to take better care of veterans. “As a country, we must help our veterans heal from PTSD,” she says. “We have very effective treatments. We need to do whatever we can to help these men and women.”

More: Dianne Feinstein Ignites Debate About Veterans With PTSD and Guns - The Daily Beast

 

[waltky]

PTSD affects drone pilots too...

Combat stress felt far from front lines
March 11, 2013 — They may never come face to face with a Taliban insurgent, never dodge a roadside bomb or take fire, but they still may be responsible for taking lives or putting their own colleagues in mortal danger. And now the military has begun to grapple with the mental and emotional strains endured by these Air Force personnel.

While they are thousands of miles from the gritty combat in Afghanistan, the analysts in the cavernous room at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia relive the explosions, the carnage and the vivid after-battle assessments of the bombings over and over again. The repeated exposure to death and destruction rolling across their computer screens is taking its own special toll on their lives. Now, for the first time, an Air Force chaplain and a psychologist are walking the floor of the operations center at Langley, offering counseling and stress relief to the airmen who scrutinize the war from afar.

Sitting at computer banks lining the expansive room, the Air Force analysts watch the video feeds streaming from surveillance drones and other military assets monitoring U.S. forces around the globe. Photos, radar data, full-motion video and electronically gathered intelligence flows across multiple screens. In 15- to 20-minute shifts, the airmen watch and interpret the information. Through chat windows, they exchange data, update intelligence reports and talk in real time with commanders on the ground, including troops whose lives may depend on the constant and rapid flow of information they get from Langley.

For example, they may provide information that allows a commander to order an airstrike, but after the weapon is launched, the analysts might suddenly see that the insurgents are fleeing or that civilians or children are moving into the strike zone, and by then they are helpless to do anything about it. "If you have a 21-year-old playing a video game, when the game is over they start again. Here, if they miss a bad guy, that's what they carry with them," said Air Force Maj. Shauna Sperry, a psychologist who has just begun working with the air wing.

They also often have to go over video of an incident repeatedly to assess the battle damage. "It's not a video game, it's real," said Capt. Robert Duplease, the chaplain assigned to the 497th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group. "It's repeated exposure to destruction and warfare. They see it, rewind it, see it, rewind it." The analysts who provide this information to ground troops are stationed at six Air Force bases around the world, including South Korea, Germany and four U.S. bases. The wing at Langley number 1,200 airmen, both male and female, enlisted personnel and officers, but most around 19 to 21 years old.

More Combat stress felt far from front lines - U.S. - Stripes