By Hannah Cox
Last week, Congress passed and President Biden signed into law a bipartisan gun control package supporters have labeled a “compromise” bill.
The gun control package includes several items: Incentives for states to pass red flag laws, a crackdown on “straw purchases,” an end to the “boyfriend loophole,” investments in mental health and suicide prevention as well as crisis and trauma intervention and recovery, an expanded requirement for who must register as a licensed federal firearms dealers, and enhanced background checks for 18-21 year olds looking to buy a gun. Under the law, NICS (the entity that carries out federal background checks) will basically have to call state and local law enforcement to search for any sealed juvenile records or mental health events as well as agencies in the state that deal with mental health issues before 18 to 21 year olds could purchase a gun.
While supporters of this legislation are presumably well-meaning, it is mostly misguided.
And while there is little indication these agenda items would actually prevent violence or save lives, there’s plenty of evidence to indicate they would deter vulnerable people from seeking mental health treatment.
Regarding the bill, Psychology Today states, “Of course, increased funding for mental health programs is sorely needed. But there is also concern among mental health advocates about reinforcing the false conflation of gun violence and mental illness. Although the popular belief is that those with mental illness are more likely to commit acts of violence, data shows that people with mental illness are more likely to be a victim of violent crime than the perpetrator.”
Sixty national mental health advocacy groups also recently crafted a letter condemning the conflation of gun violence and mental health issues. “Attempts to connect mental illness to mass shootings are a distraction that inflicts enormous damage by taking attention from solutions that could actually prevent such events,” they write. “This perpetuates a false narrative that encourages stigmatization of and discrimination against the millions of Americans living with mental health conditions who are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators of it.”
The president and CEO at Meridian Health Services, Hank Milius, also recently authored an op-ed for Yahoo! Finance writing, “gun violence is a public health issue but linking it to mental health only adds to the stigma of mental illness.” He goes on to say, “Certainly, there are cases of gun violence by individuals who have a mental illness. But to suggest there is a cause and effect by inextricably linking the two builds a false narrative.”
Milius also reiterated the talking points of Mental Health America, writing, “Mental illness is not a predictor of violence towards others, but is a predictor of suicide. Firearm deaths associated with mental illness are nearly always suicides. The majority of people with mental illness are not violent. If mental illness were eliminated, gun violence in America would go down by only 4%.”
Sixty percent of gun deaths in the US are attributed to suicide, NPR notes. So if we want to actually reduce gun deaths, mental health is an excellent place to focus our attention and resources.
But while this bill offers an expansion of services…or at least funding for services…numerous components within it would likely lead to fewer people seeking help.
As Milius and Psychology Today make clear, people who suffer from mental illness are far likelier to be victims of gun violence than perpetrators of it. But that being said, when a person in psychosis does not receive the care and or medicine they need, violence can occur. So we should do everything we can to encourage those with mental illness to seek help.
However, this bill goes the opposite way. It risks the healthcare privacy of young adults and puts their ability to defend themselves in jeopardy. If a young woman fears that seeking help for anxiety or suicidal thoughts may lead to her inability to be able to buy a gun and defend herself when she turns 18 and moves out on her own, the reality is a not-insignificant portion of the population will likely take the safe route and forego care.
Dr. Laura Streyffeler, a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, states, “I think if we start having them diagnose and take away weapons and have mental health diagnosis as a way that people are going to lose their firearms I think what’s going to happen is people are going to stop looking for help.”
Furthermore, red flags laws weaponize mental health issues against people who may have absolutely no indication of violence whatsoever. It isn’t OK to condition one’s rights on their health, which is what red flag laws do. While the actual language differs from state to state, the gist is that people who know you can alert police to behaviors they think are unstable and that can then be used to take away someone’s guns.
What behaviors that includes are pretty arbitrary, subjective, and loosely defined. Does someone not like your politics and think you’re a conspiracy theorist? Does that indicate mental unwellness? Is someone anti-gun in general and believe that merely owning a gun makes you a threat?
You get the picture here. These laws could easily be used against people who aren’t mentally ill in the least, but we know they’ll certainly be used against anyone with a history of mental illness.
Civil liberties should never be able to be taken away without due process, a preponderance of the evidence, and a trial. Red flag laws skip those conditions and make people who seek basic healthcare services vulnerable.
The reality is that most mass shooters were not mentally ill, at least not in a diagnosable way. Rather, they are typically young men who are isolated, angry, and entitled. Additionally, according to reporting by Vice, “A new Department of Justice-funded study of all mass shootings — killings of four or more people in a public place — since 1966 found that the shooters typically have an experience with childhood trauma, a personal crisis or specific grievance, and a ‘script’ or examples that validate their feelings or provide a roadmap. And then there’s the fourth thing: access to a firearm.”
Those are signs of future violence we can certainly be on guard against—and people with firearms in their home have the responsibility to make sure their guns are safe and secure—but making mental health a scapegoat for shootings is not the answer.
Instead, the gun control package demonizes and stereotypes innocent people, and makes an already vulnerable population more susceptible to abuse. It also puts too much pressure on our mental healthcare system, which is already buckling under the weight of trying to provide basic services for those who are quantifiably mentally ill. The mental health community can’t do the job of police on top of everything else.
The French economist Frédéric Bastiat once said, “In the economic sphere, an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects emerge only subsequently; they are not seen. There is only one difference between a good economist and a bad one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those which must be foreseen.”
It’s easy to see Bastiat’s description playing out under this new gun control law. Lawmakers believe they are solving one problem, the “seen,” while failing to take into account all of the negative repercussions and implications that will follow, the “unseen.”
This isn’t smart public policy, which is a shame because there are many thoughtful, well-researched people putting out reforms that could actually target violence while upholding individual liberty and ensuring vulnerable populations aren’t further harmed.
This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.
https://www.tiktok.com/@officiallymouna/video/7112610462985882922?is_copy_url
Wow. I got dizzy with that one. I hate when they talk in circles like that.
“Well yeah, our made up definition of ‘gun violence’ is a health issue, but we don’t want to admit that it’s a MENTAL health issue, because have a mental health issue will create a stigma. Stigmatized people might get violent, and we don’t want that. Look, over there! Something’s happening over there, don’t ask any more questions!”
I live a half-mile from a hoarder house, and have been helping the neighbors with trying to get it cleaned up/condemned by the county ( the next door homeowner has been trying to get something done at the place since 2007 !!)… the first thing they told me was to NEVER referr to the owner as a ” Hoarder “, as that is a mental condition protected by Federal laws. So now we all just call him Pigsty.
So you’re a neatnik that thinks he has a license to boss the neighbors around? Which is the more severe affliction? Karen or anal fussbudget tidyer? Are your neighbors suitably impressed with your patterns in the grass when you mow with your $5gas. N_gger would not pass your lips as an insult but no hesitation with “hoarder”.
Always a treat to hear from presumptive assholes like yourself, welcome. Maybe you can even top having 17 never-used vehicles on a 2 acre property, all visible in front of the property, while never driven. Maybe you’re even a “super-collector” , have you needed to stack them yet? I’ll bet you’re the first in your area to say ” I couldn’t give a fuck less what anyone thinks”. I’d also bet that toothbrush is an accurate term for you. And I bet that the BLACK complainent would love a chance to chat with you, Francis.
so WHAT IS IT wit’ YOU that sats YOU up as complainant, prosecutor, judge, jury, executioner and Determonir of Comduct for everyone whose house you can see from your own “perfect” property and along the roads to and from it? Is not aman’s home his castle, and he the sovereign over it? I’ll lay stakes as high as you like at very ;ong odds YOU haveor do something thtat irritates “hoarder”.
Why can you just accept the FACT that this term is federally protected, along with the behaviour those few letters name?
GROW UPP!!
Next thing on your agenda will be tp pontifically decide howmany guns of which types and calibres I may possess when I move in to the house next yours.
Until the knee jerk Gun Control habit ceases to exist look for the same old crap to continue. Sickening to see how Gun Control the history confirmed agenda of racists and nazis is the “go to” everytime some criminally insane individual goes bananas.
The incompetents in charge of school security got a pass and the 2A gets blamed. Want such poop to end? Then define Gun Control by its confirmed history of rot.
Dude I live in Montana, and some of the shit people have on their property should be a fucking environmental emergency disaster. Very few people want to be that nosy asshole but there is a line. Your grass touching someone’s fence and being over a certain height is not the same as some disaster of a property with obvious hoarder like issues. Some places should be condemned. You see them daily, and you judge them too – so stop acting like you don’t. Some people are just disgusting filthy creatures. Some people even go so far as to try and build huge fences like you can’t see it. And then even the fence becomes a disaster. I’m talking about shit you see in horror movies, or when the banjo starts playing.
One of my neighbors died a couple years ago and inside the house were over 100 parrots. Some had to be euthanized and others were adopted. 2 wolf dogs in the backyard and cages of rabbits stacked up to the top of the fence all down one side with a wire fence in front of the cages. . No one knew what the rabbits were for maybe to feed the dogs? Many rabbits were dead in cages or had to be euthanized. Not sure what happened to the hybrid dogs.
Inside the house there were narrow paths through the stacked stuff to rooms filled with parrots.
Nobody knew much about him other than we all called him birdman due to all the squawking coming from the house. I know he had some sort of big animals in back as you could hear them attacking the fence at times.
His son took over a month to clean all the stuff out so he did not accidentally throw anything away that was valuable or needed.
Birdman caused us to not get mail picked up unless they were delivering mail to our house. Just our street had that happen. He apparently was such a problem for them that they punished the whole street. The post offices way of handling a real asshole I guess. After he died we were able to put mail out and know it would get picked up.
And there are patches all down the road where they had to dig up sections and replace them because a garbage truck had a leak. I asked why they were digging up in front of my house and they pointed up the street and said your neighbor.
We all knew he was a odd duck and not friendly so no one knew much about him. His son said he wished he knew how bad it was as he would have had him placed in guardianship.
We probably could have done something about him and maybe should have. Did not know he had so many animals. Both his neighbors were not sorry to see he died, Apparently he was a pain to them too.
No one had seen him for awhile and his brother after a month or so had of him not answering the phone had the police do a welfare check and they found him dead inside.
I would have turned him in if I had known what has happening inside.
Well what you need to do is give em more sht. Then theyd run out of room and move somewhere else.
Property go up on a tax sale, you could buy it, problem solved.
Ken, you’d better hope that Larry, Darrell, or the other brother Darrell (neiowa, Tionico, or Biatec) dont move into the neighbor’s house now that it’s cleaned up. Sounds like you’d be right back to square one.
Other people’s property is not your business commie.
… and this is my other brother Darrell
Until the rats come into your yard.
A hoarder isn’t a an extreme collector/antique/saving for parts person.
Sanitation is a concern.
I don’t care what you do. Just don’t ruin your neighbors’ property values. Taxes don’t go down when your home value goes down….at least for years.
I wonder if it is just a coincidence that the mentally ill population in our prisons has increased steadily since mental health hospitals were closed? The legislatures sold the idea of closing the mental health hospitals on the basis that the states would save a bundle of green. All that happened is that the cost of mental health treatment got passed to the counties and cities where treatment consists of meds for 72 hours and if you are no longer suicidal, homicidal or catatonic, you get kicked loose with a bottle of meds (which you hate to take) and told to come back when you have used them all up. A guy with a broken leg gets better treatment than that, put a cast on, give you a bottle of aspirin and tell you to come back when the aspirin is all gone. And watch the general population scream bloody murder.
So all the folks who formerly were in mental health hospitals are now wandering the streets until they have a psychotic breakdown and the cops are called. If they are really wigged out either the cops shoot them or they wind up injuring or killing some bystander or family member.
We had more hospital beds for the mentally ill in 1880 than we have today and in case you hadn’t noticed, there are just a few more folks wandering around, especially the mentally ill ones. That’s not percentage wise or per 1,000 of population, that is by actual count. Yeah, mental health treatment in the 1880s wasn’t all that great but at least they had a bed to sleep in, 3 meals a day and a bath once a week which is a lot more than they are getting now. And, by the way, general medical care wasn’t that great in 1880 either, so they were both on a par with each other.
As a Texas resident, I am completely ashamed John Cornyn is representing the great state of Texas. He doesn’t represent the values that has made and makes the Texas, well Texas. His willingness to “compromise” on such basic constitutional rights proves he has no business holding the position he does. Can you say “recall election”?
You can’t recall members of Congress.
I also live in Texas and it’s ridiculous this jerk keeps getting sent back. That’s the power of incumbency. It’s wrong.
Who are his opponents?
Colonel,
I am the first to admit/acknowledge the “power of incumbency”, but . . . that is on us, the voters, not Congress. While I deplore it, I am not even SLIGHTLY surprised by the fact that most modern politicians view their position as a career, not “public service”. I hate the result, but “the voters” have the right (and OBVIOUSLY have the ability) to keep electing career kleptocrats. Until we get smarter voters, we’ll keep getting idiots like Malig-Nancy Pelosi and Schmucky Chucky Schumer being sent back to the hallowed halls of Congress. We need to pray for a better class of voters. OTOH, if we made the right to vote subject to a background check, IQ test, and basic knowledge of civics, counting votes in the next election would take an hour, max . . . and neither MinorIQ nor dacian the stupid would ever be able to vote again (and that’s a win in and of itself).
As I in Iowa with Senator Ersnt. I suspect everything she has said in the recent years of her Senate career/campaign is BS. Iowa gets rid of that dispicable POS Tom Harkin and now we have a RINO.
But ,but you folks keep electing these cretins . It’s amazing how many stupid people actually vote the same miscreants in year after year. Wait, that sounds as if it’s mental illness. Doing the same thing over and over
I live a half-mile from a hoarder house, and have been helping the neighbors with trying to get it cleaned up/condemned by the county ( the next door homeowner has been trying to get something done at the place since 2007 !!)… the first thing they told me was to NEVER referr to the owner as a ” Hoarder “, as that is a mental condition protected by Federal laws. So now we all just call him Pigsty.
Jeez, I usually get moderated, now I get double posted on one click. See ya, I’m off to get a lottery ticket aforein’ my luck changes back.
Well, duh.
Expect fewer people to seek help and household relationships to strain as individuals in need work overtime to hide their need lest they be punished for their honesty.
If left to stand this nonsense is going to cause greater damage to society.
SAY IT AIN’T SO!!! Don’t tell me that a halfwit “common-sense gun control” measure will have unintended consequences (but are they REALLY ‘unintended’??), and actually make the problem worse. UNPOSSIBLE!!! Leftist/fascist “solutions’ to non-existent, non-serious, and/or misinterpreted “problems” NEVER go wrong . . . EVER. Why just look at ObummerCare – “we have 20 million more people covered!!” (a blatant lie, by the way) – by shitty insurance that costs at least half again as much as the insurance I USED to have, but can’t get anymore since Barry Soetoro, Malig-Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck the Schmuck Schumer “gifted” me with ObummerCare. How can any dedicated Leftist/fascist ask for more – a VERY arguable increase in the number of people covered with . . . objectively crappier coverage. That is their goal . . . everyone to equally share the misery.
Leftists hate individuality, personal responsiblity, individual agency . . . because they, themselves, are incapable of dealing with it. C.f., MinorIQ and dacian the stupid – if those two brainless, uneducated, ignorant cretins were responsible for themselves, they would shoot themselves in the foot – in all likelihood, both literally AND figuratively. I hate fascists, but I particularly hate Leftist/fascists.
leftism = fascism
Their mantta is “do as I tell you to do, and do not question it or me”.
Führer Complex, I believe.
Not untrue, Tionico, but bear in mind that there ARE right wing fascists, too (Augusto Pinochet, for example). The love of power, the desire to tell others what to do, and an abiding (and baseless) belief in the efficacy of government are not unique to one political group. Although they certainly are more common on the Left: “I’ll see your Augusto Pinochet, and raise you Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega . . . “. Yeah, if it weren’t a crooked game, the Left would have to fold early.
“Of course, increased funding for mental health programs” will guarantee full employment for useless pshrinks. All whom are reliable demtard voters and who never CURE anyone.
These laws brought
to you by Negotiating Rights Away. To the tune of $43000000!🙄 He!! of job old Wayne!
I think its JOHN Cornyn – damn lawyer, RINO Tx.
When I used to go to mental ill hearings as part of my job the joke was the way to tell patients from staff, because they all wore scrubs, was staff had name badges and patients did not. Otherwise it was difficult to tell staff from patients because they all were a little weird. If you run around with a hard drinking crowd, you will drink more than if you run around with a bunch of devout Mormons.
If you hang around with people acting bizarrely, a little weirdness on your part hardly gets noticed by the folks who are also hanging around with people acting bizarrely.
Cuke Cornyn didn’t compromise he capitulated.
What they won’t touch is big pharma in relation to mind altering drugs, especially the effect changes or elimination of, or new prescriptions has on behavior/thinking.
The other thing that is in common, whether purposefully or due to drugs, these mass shooters don’t love others, respect others, tolerate others, or at least believe in the right to life or even the right to self defense, as they tend to target locations that offer little if any resistance.
There is a particular party in this country who is in love with death. And doesn’t believe in the right to life or the right to self defense. Indeed, they are often triggered by these two concepts.
and if you were to investigate this segmentof society you would find almost NONE of them grew up in a home with a functional FATHER present, almost all of them were warehoused in “day care” centres since very young, where they are not allowed to develop interpersonal skills, sch as communicationbargaining, cooperation, working things out, yielding to the preferences of others, denying your own self and desires for the sake of others…..nd almost none of this segment have spent any significant time in studying the things of God, let alone every spent any time to speak of in church.
In short, they have never been CIVILISED and taught/encouraged to become a part of SOCIETY.
When they get to high school, it is far too late to de/re-programme them to be civilised human beings.
“…almost all of them were warehoused in “day care” centres since very young…”
‘abandoned’ more accurate than ‘warehoused’.
All of this unfettered petulance, public temper tantrums (looting, rioting, arson, vandalism, school shootings) are clear evidence of abandonment issues.
Yes, “very young”. Most of them went in as infants and were robbed of the bond between child and parent that is developed only by 24/7 companionship and attention.
According to Senator John Kennedy in his book about Fauci and big pharma, the folks who work for the CDC and the FDA get a personal royalty from the pharma companies who actually manufacture drugs sponsored by the FDA and CDC. It isn’t quite as bad as it used to be. Now by law they are limited to only $250,000 per year whereas prior there was no limit. Aww gee, time are tough. Only a quarter mil a year. Hard to get buy on that these days.
If Democrat of Republican lawmakers truly cared about mental health, we would have universal healthcare in the U.S.
No, pay for your own shit.
So that faceless bureaucrats can decide whether or not I’m “worthy” of them paying for my medical care? Screw that.
Communist!!! The medical profession at present is SO bad (study what they’ve namaged to make of a silly man-made virus exported from a very unscrupulous nation)
and you want ME to like being FORCED to take whatever two bit lazy medical hack to whom they decide to surrender me? I’ve endured thirty years of that game with a nasty workplace injury claim At least with everything else I can go find my OWN preferred pratitioner nd get tings done.
Overanus
Upuranus
If it’s free, it’s rationed.
You won’t get your hip replaced or heart surgery if you’re over a certain age, or have any other medical issues.
They have to check the boxes, and add up your score, then they decide, not you.
Frank,
I am not generally a fan/simp of him, but on this issue, Ben Shapiro has this one right. There are three measures of “quality” of health care – universality, affordability, and quality. Pick two. You CANNOT have all three; that is simply a law of economics. The Left obviously chooses universality and at least lies about preferring affordability (buying it with OPM (other people’s money) is NOT affordable, or sustainable. If you had ever studied economics, that would not need to be explained to you, but . . . Leftist idiots, waddayagonnado???
“Universal health care” is Leftist speak for “How the f*** did we get in this mess??? I know, let’s raise taxes!!”. I am amazed that Leftists are capable of going to the bathroom without supervision – we need universal bathroom monitors!!!!
The government could screw up a one-car parade.
Administered by the same friendly folk at the Department of Motor Vehicles or Social Security. By the way, why does the Department of Social Security have a swat team complete with all the toys that they got from the Army? Is it to make sure that my 91 year old wife doesn’t go ape when the gate keeper for her meds tells us that we have to wait three more days to get a prescription filled even though the pharmacy is closed on Sunday and Monday and Sunday is the third day?
Saw this pop up, *BREAKING NEWS*
30 years ago today –
https://twitter.com/kangminjlee/status/1520840303552438277?cxt=HHwWioC51diMjpsqAAAA
The Famous ‘Rooftop Koreans’… 🙂
Investigate all the companies and organizations who will be getting this funding and we’ll find out quickly this is just another federal scam.
You mean you aren’t confident in their sincere ability to solve problems by throwing money at it, given their track record?
I think the author has made some good points particularly about Red Flag Laws which are clearly unconstitutional. My advice for this entire thing is to ignore any new laws that can be ignored, don’t respond to calls, letters, or any form of communication even visits to your home.
If you have Make My Day or Castle Domain laws in your state invoke those for anyone coming to your home to harass you about your firearms or related issues and tries to enter your home. There are so many more of us than them you can simply create an administrative nightmare for them and make them work for every single violation of your rights until they give up or die trying.
dprato,
Philosophically, I agree with you. Reality is . . . that’s gonna get you shot. Not saying there isn’t a time for it, but . . . be prepared for the consequences.
Well, it is good advice for those who want to become a martyr for the cause because it will get you dead. Ask Randy Weaver. Ask the Branch Dividians. The Waco sheriff after the fact said any time he wanted to talk to the Head Davidi all he had to do was go up and knock on the door and the guy came out and they chatted. He never felt threatened talking to him.
All Randy Weaver wanted to do was to be left alone. He didn’t like living with folks of color and so moved out to the wilderness so he wouldn’t have to be around them. The feds couldn’t stand that and entrapped him into a phony sawed off shotgun deal — conduct the Federal Supremes said was entrapment and was illegal. And then murdered his wife.
“The majority of people with mental illness are not violent. If mental illness were eliminated, gun violence in America would go down by only 4%.”
Well, ya kind of need to qualify that a little.
The majority of people with mental illness are not violent.
But the majority of people with violent tendency mental illness ARE violent. For example, the buffalo shooter had violent tendency mental illness as he believed, not thought but believed, a delusion that he needed to kill black people to keep black people from replacing white people and eliminating the white race, and he wanted to inspire others to commit similar attacks. Mental illness can be a temporary thing. Had school shooters with violent tendency mental illness been eliminated from roaming free in society over 90% of school shootings would not have taken place.
I’d like to add, the author does make some good valid points about red flag laws and stigmatizing all people with mental illness as violent.
.40 cal,
“Mental illness” can range from a mild disability (Asperger’s or “high functioning” autistics, for example) to a severe condition that makes the person unfit/unsafe to be in society, so, NO, it is impossible to “generalize” about mental illness. For example, as a practical matter, I am sure that there ARE Leftists in existence, somewhere, that aren’t completely ignorant and bats*** crazy . . . haven’t met any, but I believe they exist.
While I am a firm believer in letting people “go to hell their own way”, problems that Darwin used to take care of now proliferate. Unless we’re going to let nature take its course, the extreme end of that needs to be institutionalized.
Personally, being a libertarian, I deplore that result, but, unless you’re willing to let the obviously mentally incompetent be weeded out by “survival of the fittest”, that is the only rational alternative. I say, just take the warning labels off of everything, and let Nature sort that s*** out.
The left cannot fundamentally change this country without making everyone on all sides crazy. That’s what this is part of. It creates mental illness and takes what’s already there and makes it worse.
This is no different from CRT, diversity&inclusion, and forced political re-education on children…it is in itself, racism.
Both mental health issues and gun violence in America today have a lot more to do with rampant narcotics abuse (both illegal and prescription). The gun law is just to divert public attention from Big Pharma’s role in all of this; and from corrupt politicians who look the other way at drug trafficking.
Night Wind,
Cause, or symptom??? While there are some psychotropic drugs that demonstrably cause or exascerbate mental conditions, my “lived experience” is that most abusers of drugs have “pre-existing conditions” that either caused or accelerated the drug use. Big Pharma definitely needs to be more accountable, but I can’t go as far as blaming the current mental health epedimic on them. They certainly are making it worse, though!!
Big pharma and the CIA. I was about 3/4 of the way through a book describing the CIA covering for major drug importers until I got so angry I had to quit. May be fiction, but he names name, cites cases and dates and lists cases that got dismissed by the justice department where the evidence would have seemed to be overwhelming.
From a possums point of view all humans are mentally ill.
When gas is $15 a gallon and milk is 8 humans are going to see a lot more crazy.
Speaking of crazy, how about Our president.
Let’s Go Brandon
Possum,
I got bit by a duck once, so I grabbed him by the feathers and hauled it him off to the vet. “Doc”, I said, “this duck is mentally unstable, he needs medication”. Doc said “I can prescribe something, but if you didn’t like his bill, wait till you see mine”.
👍
🤣
My prescription for ducks includes chopped apple & onion with fresh sage leaves for the inside, a few rashers of bacon for the outside, and a hot oven to seal the deal.
Hmmm….I have never eaten duck, but that sounds good.
Rashers, Bangers, and parsley potato pancakes – that’s what leprechauns hide at the end of the rainbow
possum,
How can you say that?!?!?! Joe Biden is the bestest “(P)resident” EVAH . . . just ask MinorIQ or dacian the stupid. After all, 81 million people voted for him!!! (*snort, guffaw*). And he’s not a poopy-head that writes mean tweets!!
OTOH, yep, possums are not wrong; humans are bats*** crazy. ‘Course, so are possums (nothing personal!). Trees. Trees are sane.
Run a search on drug-induced violence. Then search on the number of folk in this country who are on psychotropic medications.
Pharma produces chemicals that cause thoughts of violence, and impulse to violence, bu guns get tha blame.
LifeSavor,
Unfortunately, our technological capacity has far outstripped our understanding. As Dr. Ian Malcolm said “Your researchers were so busy figuring out whether they could, they never thought about whether they SHOULD.” We invented drugs to control processes we only DIMLY understand . . . and that understanding is new. Yeah, we need to slow the f*** down and understand WHAT we are doing before we do it.
I had an enlightening conversation recently with a friend (another libertarian) who caught me by surprise with an observation that he regretted the “Manhattan Project” and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki because “We weren’t ready to let that genie out of the bottle. Sure, we saved a million GIs, and several million Japanese, but . . . now literally billions of us live in the shadow of nuclear disaster. Man isn’t wise enough to handle nuclear weapons.”
He is not wrong. But, . . . we’ve got them, now, so we’d better f***ing learn.
Lamp: Your friend is deluding himself. If we hadn’t developed the bomb, the Russians would have developed its eventually. Not only did the bomb save hundreds of thousands of American lives and millions of Japanese lives, it saved Russia invading Japan and Japan ending up divided like Germany. In addition, the Japanese would have never surrendered on their on homeland. Look at the holdouts on the islands in the Pacific. Now imagine those same died in the wool patriots on their own homeland supposed surreptitiously by surviving Japanese civilians. We would still be trying to clean out the last of the holdouts.
Even after we dropped the second bomb opinion was strongly divided among the ruling class. It wasn’t until we guaranteed that the emperor would not be tried as a war criminal and could continue as a figurehead ruler that the emperor finally ordered the country to surrender. Your friend needs to study the war in the Pacific a little more and needs to do some reading of works by the members of the emperor’s privy council to gain a feel for the fervor of the Japanese against an invasion by westerners.
I see the connection between shootings and mental health but. On the SUICIDE fron the gun merely provides a quick and easy tool. If somebody realy meaans to top themselves a firearm makes no difference -. There a thousand and one ways to achieve suicide. The other thinbg is that some of THE most dangerous psychopaths, those with Bi-Polar disorder and schitzophrenics are extremely good at disguising their mental conditions especially PSYCHOPATHS. The majority of the mentally disturbed are only identified by their own voluntary presentation for treatment.
An awful lot of kids of both sexes pre-teens especially are ‘oddballs’ and even sociapaths and the vast majority like myself grow out of. [it took joining the ROYAL AIR FORCE as an Aircraft Apprentice [Armourer] at the age of 16 from a mildly dysfuntional family to bring me to my senses.
I find it bit unfair to label kids like this and you can be sure that organisationsds like INSURANCE Companies and furure employers wILL be requesting records of any assessments.
Thne answere of course if staring Americans in the face. Bring about legislation that LIMITS -Number ONE – the number and types of fire arms and ammunition that can held by a person, Number TWO stricter conditions of license and Number THREE a much tighter and enforced licensing for the retail industry and a limit of sales oulets in any given area. All thses suggestions could be implemented with out transgressing the American Constitution in such matters all.
Let’s face for all pracical; purposes NOBODY needs more than one decent 9mm or .38 calibre for an self-defence purpos. Nobody actually need’s anything more than a decent FIVE shot Bolt Action D Rifle of a relevant calibre, though I might possibly make a exception for Rimfire .22 LOng. and nobody actually needs more thnn 25 rounds of ammunition of each calibre at hand for immediate use.
The gun owners of America must surely learn the difference between what they really need and can justify and what they childishly merely want without justification
Oh look, its somebody from a foreign country deciding what an American needs.
I think your just jealous.
I cant have so you cant have either.
The USA and Great Britain: two countries separated by a common language.
Albert sounds a lot like Our president.
And I was thinking of this last night.
” You dont need 30rnds to shoot a deer” , theBiden should know that hunting deer has a magazine restriction just like waterfowl.
I’m looking at the U.S. constitution 2 amendment I cant find the part about arms used for hunting purposes? Seems like most of it’s about having arms to protect the country from tyrants.
Let’s Go Brandon
You can tell Albert is really British because sometimes he says bloody. Dead giveaway. (wink)
I know people with insane numbers of SHOES. Or cameras, Or wrenches Or Vokswagen cars, Or kitchen tools (INCLUDING the most wonderful of all, the classic ten inch Chef’s Knife, which you lot the rong side the puddle cannot purchase any more, s they are banned. Don’t nip round and be asking to inspect MY kitchen knife collection), bicycles (I’ve got somewhere near twenty, and enough bits and sparres to build half a dozen more), wooden box coffee grinders, musical instruments.. HOW can yo determine how many FIREARMS I should be able to have? That number, to set you straight, is simply as many as I both want and have the funds to acquire.
Yes I have nines… mulitples, different makesmodels. WHY? The nine is a great round, I like vriety, some are arger/lighter/hold more/less recoil, smaller, etc. But there re times/places where a nine just will not serve. What then? I ALWAYS bring along my little “protector” when out cycling, as there have been muggings in my area targetting cyclists. We are, for some reason I cannot comprehend, considered “hot’ targets. THAT scenario is what caused me to begin carrying, but not WHAT I will carry. Nines are too large, thus uncontrollable on the bike.
Tell ya what, mate: YIOU decide what YOU need to do on YOUR side the Puddle, and I’ll decide for ME< HERE this side.
Seems fair enough.
While you are pondering, have a loook into the history of time this natnion became a nation. Yes, I mean when we kicked you lot out and established a decent government.
Remember the ONE TRIGGERING EVENT that launched the open conflict led to having you lot back accross that Puddle? What WAS the order that was disobeyed, who gave it and what was the response to it? And HOW WAS it our side was able to prevail? THen, some twenty years on, you lot decided to have another go at it. Well that time we ended up chasing your lot's backsides straight back to from whence you came.
Dont be coming round and telling US what's good for US. You Brits seem to have a tough enough time figuring that out for yourselves.
“The gun owners of America must surely learn the difference…”
We did, and then acted on it, some 250 years ago.
Albert, You are thick. How many times does this need to be explained.
Manse,
Don’t bother – Albert the Subject is protected by his invulnerable cloak of Leftist ignorance. A thought couldn’t penetrate that skull with a diamond drill. Ever notice that new inventions from the British pretty much went away when their empire collapsed? They are a subject people, and subjects are SOO “last century”.
It ain’t none of your business!
If you knew what you were talking about you might be dangerous.
When I go to the range, for starters, I shoot 100 rounds of .22 long rifle from my .22 pistol for warm up. I then fire 50 rounds of either 9mm or .38..357. I then switch to my .22 rifle and fire 50 rounds from it. I then switch to my shotgun and fire 25 rounds from it. Finally I finish the day with either .308 or .30-06 and fire 50 rounds from either one of those guns at various distances from 100 yards to 300 yards.
That’s my regular regime in order to stay familiar with each of this categories of firearms. On many occasions, I will add a different firearm, say a .44 magnum or British .303 which I like to shoot. It is buck ugly, but it sure gave the Germans fits in WWI. Too bad the British army was led by jackasses. The Germans used to say about the British Army, “Lions led by donkeys.”
Did you know after WWI the average height of the British subject fell by a couple of inches? Seems most of the best physical specimens got wiped out going over the top and all that were left were the runts that didn’t meet the minimal draft standards. Guess that explains Little Al. IQ went down too as Al so spectacularly demonstrates..
“I will stop by and knock you up” has two very different meanings, depending upon which shore you are standing.
“Unless you are going to put a SWAT team in every school, 24/7, what exactly are you proposing to do?” says Mike Lawlor, a University of New Haven criminal justice professor who previously served as Connecticut’s undersecretary for criminal justice policy. Even with trained law enforcement on the scene, “They were outgunned by this kid who was wearing body armor and had an AR-15” assault weapon, notes Lawlor, who as a state legislator authored the state’s “red flag” gun law allowing firearms to be denied to people deemed a danger to themselves or others.
When law enforcement responds almost immediately, shooters have nevertheless been able to kill many people before being stopped. In August 2019, a gunman opened fire in downtown Dayton, Ohio, and police “neutralized” him 30 seconds after he fired his first shot, authorities said at the time. But because the shooter was armed with a high-capacity magazine, he was able to fire dozens of shots quickly, killing nine and wounding 27.
The FBI reports don’t detail shootings of civilians who were trying to save others but mistaken as the original shooters. But there have been incidents when a “good guy” perished for his efforts to defend himself or others from an active shooter. In Alabama in 2018, Emantic Fitzgerald Bradford Jr. – hailed as a hero by people who said he pulled out his gun to protect them after shots rang out in a shopping center – was himself fatally shot by police who believed Bradford to be the perpetrator.
The romantic notion of a “good guy” avenger is rooted in American pulp fiction and crime fiction, says Georgetown University professor Susanna Lee, author of the book “Hard Boiled Crime Fiction and the Decline of Moral Authority.” Characters such as Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe – always shooting bad guys and never missing – feed a myth of being both invulnerable and righteous by virtue of carrying a gun, she says.
“This is something particular to American fiction, the romanticized notion of the man who is alone and armed,” Lee says. “And it’s particularly American on a second level – that being that Americans are uniquely not just willing but eager to mix fiction and reality.
“The fiction is that having a gun is an extension of strength, confidence and self-possession. But gun ownership and gun use is really all about men feeling fearful, inadequate and vengeful,” Lee adds.
https://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2022-05-27/uvalde-buffalo-shootings-expose-the-myth-of-the-good-guy-with-a-gun
Hey look at me! I found a random quote from a professor that matches my agenda. Doesn’t matter that she has no credentials for criminology or anything remotely linked to guns or crime. But hey, she wrote a book!
Susanna Lee, Georgetown Department of French and Francophone Studies
https://contact.georgetown.edu/view/sl22/
Yeah, Julio, but she GOT A DEGREE!!!! So dacian believes she is smart. Funny, I’ve got a drawer full of them, and dacian doesn’t think I’m smart . . . so he’s as illogical and inconsistent as he is uneducated and ignorant. dacian claims he is “educated”, but when pressed on the details, he runs for the hills. Just like he CLAIMS to be older (how old depends on which one of his lies you are citing; he can’t keep that straight, either), and that he’s an “expert” on firearms. dacian is an uneducated idiot, and probably a loser 20-something, living in his mother’s basement. Either ignore him, or mock him mercilessly.
Rand Paul said they were handed a blank piece of paper and told to vote for it. That is technically a bad thing…….
ie, THE bill probably hasn’t actually been written yet.
So they were sneaking something else in it?
The progs ALWAYS do so
Dude,
COUNT ON IT!!!
“We have to pass it to see what’s in it.” – “wisdom” from our Dimocrat/Leftist/fascist “leaders”.
Precisely!
Bastiat: The unseen but known consequences is the we’ll have raving mad Marxocrats turning in law biding citizens and the law biding citizens won’t have any recourse at all but to be enslaved by the Marxist created Red Flag laws the Cornyn and others who supported it. Or to be shot and killed by LEO’s at their home if they defend their rights. John “Benedict Arnold” Cornyn, you have betrayed your country and Texas. By supporting RFL in the states you are still supporting RFL. We’re not stupid like you think we are. And your law is unconstitutional. I expect that the 2AF and GOA will have to go to court again. Your betrayal will also result in a decline in people seeking MH treatment for fear of your unconstitutional RF and an increase in suicides. Sleep on that one.
No one is looking into or commenting on this expanded definition of when a FFL is required. Wonder what that is about.
The president and CEO at Meridian Health Services recently authored an op-ed for Yahoo! Finance writing, “please don’t stop coming here and spending money.”
“Certainly, there are cases of gun violence by individuals who have a mental illness. But to suggest there is a cause and effect by inextricably linking the two builds a false narrative.”
It does not build a false narrative if the person has violent tendency mental illness.
“Is someone anti-gun in general and believe that merely owning a gun makes you a threat?”
No, it does not make gun owners a threat. But Biden, democrats, left liberals, and anti-gun are fanatics with a delusional view, as evidenced by this bill, their activity, and the information in this article all of which points to a mental health illness psychosis for Biden, democrats, left liberals, and anti-gun.
“The reality is that most mass shooters were not mentally ill, at least not in a diagnosable way.”
And there it is… “… at least not in a diagnosable way.” ALL mass/school/murder/criminal shooters are mentally ill, at least at the time they commit their henious crimes. Rage, sudden uncontrolled anger, a view of others as prey, lack of empathy to the point of harming others, delusion thoughts of fanaticism (e.g. based on racial hatred crimes, or personal crisis or specific grievance), are traits in whole or separately displayed by ALL mass/school/murder/criminal shooters when they commit their crimes. They do not appear to be so only sometimes AFTER they commit their crimes. “at least not in a diagnosable way” kind of needs to qualified, it does not mean there was no mental illness when the crimes are committed and just means HAS NOT YET BEEN DIAGNOSED OR WAS NOT PREVIO0USLY DIAGNOSED OR DOES NOT MANIFEST AFTER THE CRIME WAS COMMITTED. “at least not in a diagnosable way” is a scapegoat concept used by the mental health medical community to say “there was some sort of mental illness condition, we don’t know what it was though.”
“Firearm deaths associated with mental illness are nearly always suicides.”
This needs to be qualified, and its mostly not correct because its too broad and not qualified. Firearm deaths associated with mental illness are nearly always suicides IF it was truly suicide by the firearm method. Over 60% of deaths ‘initially’ determined to be suicides by use of the firearm method are later, sometimes many years later, found to have been accident or (murder) homicides. Unfortunately, the way our ‘government’ and medical communities keep stats do not allow for removal of these from the stats thus it falsely inflates the number of actual suicides by the firearm method.
“A new Department of Justice-funded study of all mass shootings — killings of four or more people in a public place — since 1966 found that the shooters typically have an experience with childhood trauma, a personal crisis or specific grievance, and a ‘script’ or examples that validate their feelings or provide a roadmap. And then there’s the fourth thing: access to a firearm.”
There ya go, mental health illness ….. but, those still would have acted on their impulses or acted out their psychosis for violence even if they did not have access to a firearm. This is one of those things where the government looked at a microscopic view and jumped to the conclusion that for everyone access to a firearm is a cause.
“And while there is little indication these agenda items would actually prevent violence or save lives, there’s plenty of evidence to indicate they would deter vulnerable people from seeking mental health treatment.”
This is true.
“… data shows that people with mental illness are more likely to be a victim of violent crime than the perpetrator.””
Hmmm… needs qualification. People with violent tendency mental illness are more likely to be a perpetrator than a victim of violent crime. The next quoted statement from the article acknowledges this.
“Certainly, there are cases of gun violence by individuals who have a mental illness. But to suggest there is a cause and effect by inextricably linking the two builds a false narrative.”
But, this is not entirely correct in its qualification. There are cases of gun violence by individuals who have a mental illness, but gun violence by individuals who have a mental illness happens in less than ~1% of cases of such mental illness. The other ~99% is violence by other means such as, for example, by use of hands/feet/object/sharp instrument and this violence may happen at different levels of severity from attempted to actual from minor to major. The fact that not all violence by individuals who have a mental illness is perpetrated with a firearm is something that has been glossed over and hidden by the agenda of the mental health medical community, government, anti-gun interests, democrats, and left liberals to focus on firearm to make it seem like there is a public health crises of firearm violence in terms of mental illness and only because there are firearms when in reality although ALL mass/school/murder/criminal shooters are mentally ill at the time they commit their crimes these account for less than 1% of ALL the violence perpetrated by those with mental illness.
The real public health crises here is not firearms, it is the mental health medical community, government, anti-gun interests, democrats, and left liberals and this bill now gives those a legal (although unconstitutional) agenda platform upon which to persecute innocent law abiding citizens.
Correction:
“There are cases of gun violence by individuals who have a mental illness, but gun violence by individuals who have a mental illness happens in less than ~1% of cases of such mental illness.”
should have been
There are cases of gun violence by individuals who have a mental illness, but ALL mass/school/murder/criminal shooters are mentally ill, at least at the time they commit their heinous crimes, and gun violence by these are less than 1% of the violence in the country – ~99% of violence in the country is perpetrated with other means (e.g. hands/feet/object/sharp instrument) against victims.
Illegal demtard voting.
I’m okay with Moron69er, aka Miner49er, and the entirety of the commie antifa freaks complete losing their rights to own weapons of any kind.
You’d have to be an idiot to trust any mental health or social worker, or even a medical doctor, who also has a “duty to report,” with any personal or mental health issues. Guys, you want someone to tell a problem to? Tell a stripper.
The anti gun set likes to claim it is driven by a concern for the public good. Some members thereof, those who indulge in self delusion might actually so believe.
I submit that the real situation is otherwise, as follows. In plain English, they are driven by their belief in their mental, emotional and moral superiority, characteristics that allow, enable, justify their ordering everyone else around. Talk of the mentally disturbed.
After reading the post and some of the responses. I have mixed thoughts. ONE, is that while only a small percentage of mentally ill are dangerous, there are those who ARE and THOSE who are a danger should NOT have firearms!!!!! Most of the most tragic mass killings and I think ALL of the school shootings, the attacker was known to have mental problems and be dangerous. We don’t need to avert our eyes to the likes of the Virginia Tech killer or the Parkland killer or the Sandy Hook killer or the Las Vagas killer to have those who know these people are dangerous to report them to a court. The courts can do the investigations and make a better determination. A bonus is that if someone is SUICIDAL then maybe they get help before they kill themselves.
Some of you are FAR off the mark.
I personally am convinced that Giun Control is a Mental Health Problem, growing into an Emergency:
A certain percentage of an audience who watches a movie, TV show, or even a portrayal (play) will be CONVINCED of the included message. BECAUSE their brain cannot objectively tell that WHAT THEIR EYES SEE is just theater. They would have to reach in and correct it.
It is NOT REALITY. Enough showings/plays produces a majority of
the mentally deficient who vote in November. That’s how it works.
A person so convinced becomes “convicted” of the need to “Right The Terrible Wrong” that was espoused by the Theater People.
These do-gooders are the gun-control Whackos, and are the mentally unstable in our society, to be much feared. Note that they snub self
improvement, and accuse only the innocent.
With 95% of “News” television given over to Theater, the number of the mentally unbalanced rises
daily. Guin Control is now genuinely
a Mental Health Emergency!
As it is HIGHLY ILLEGAL to steal away the Constitutional Rights
of a Citizen, these criminals need to be arrested and imprisoned.
As they all seem to be rich, they need to hire their own lawyers.
So more “professionals” are now saying “it’s not my nut case patients, it must then be the gun”
This is very concerning this needs to be looked after.
So cool topic