My 84 yr old dad becoming increasingly abusive, has shot a gun, to scare mom, into ground back yard. told her to call the police if ANYTHING like that ever happens again, A year later, dad held an unloaded gun in her face, she is so unhappy. All of us kids live hours away and arent sure what to do, but are scared of escalation. Beginning alzheimers?
Is this new behavior for Dad or has he been somewhat abusive all his life? If it happened out of the blue a year ago I wonder if it might indicate a medical problem. Can you convince Dad it is time for a thorough physical checkup?
In any case it does not sound like a nice safe situation for Mom. Did she call 911 as you instructed her, with the more recent gun incident?
Would Mom be willing to move out? If so, that may be something you could help her with.
Would both of them be willing to go to couples counseling? If not, is Mom willing to go into counselling on her own?
Sometimes tough decisions have to be made but they can be carried out regardless the situation! Might be time for kiddos to take a group vacation trip home and get this all sorted out as a group.
I'll go one farther than Ba8alou:
Your father has committed a felony by assaulting your mother with a weapon. It's known as felonious assault, and is actionable.
You should be aware of this potential liability of you and your siblings: You have knowledge of a dangerous situation. If you fail to act, there may be charges police could level against you. You have an obligation to protect your parents.
Your father doesn't need to discuss his mental health with a physician; a doctor can do a complete physical including mental assessment without telling your father he's evaluating for dementia.
If your father won't go to a doctor alone, then take your mother out for lunch or dinner, to go shopping, whatever. Create an excuse to get her out of there. And don't take her home.
Forget about counseling; get your mother out, safe and secure even if you have to have police help to do it.
Since your sister's there now, arrange for her to take your mother with her just before your dad is discharged. Or suggest she talk to the treating physician about referring him for a psychiatric consult. Perhaps he can be committed for an eval to determine what's happening, or one can surreptitously be done while he's hospitalized.
Removing ammo would be helpful only until your father discovers it's gone and goes to buy more. Removing the weapons is better.
But you need to act now. Contact the police in the area and ask for assistance to either remove or disable the guns. I'm not sure, but I think if the firing pins are removed the guns can't be shot, or rather the trigger could be pulled but the bullet won't fire. Still, the best thing to do is take away the weapons, even if it means confronting your father.
Despite everything that's going on with you and your siblings, this is an emergency. Take time off work if you have to - what's more important? I can't imagine any decent employer that would deny an emergency leave for this purpose.
My mom asked me to help her get ammo out of the house when Dad, who was slowly sinking into fronto-temporal dementia, got mad at her (understanable - she yelled at him constantly for everything and nothing!) and just SAID he was going to shoot her, and then was just cleaning or fooling with the guns. I did it and at the time didn't realize where it was all heading - I made sure Mom knew to call and knew the numbers to call if there were any more threats before I left, but I left it as it was because it was what she still wanted to do at the time. Your situation is beyond that.
Of course it is hard. Very hard. You have to be clever, cunning and tough - and above all, unwilling to go an accepting the unacceptable in this situation where no one seems to have any rational judgement left. look at it as you would if someone else was telling you their story - what does your gut say then? It's hard but it is time to do whatever has to be done. And I hope you have a decent enough employer - I've been denied or given a quarter of the time I really needed to deal with my own family crises.