Mental health and gun control

Post Reply New Topic

Not all substance abuse does, but some really do correlate to higher levels of violence, unfortunately.

Mental illness does not equate being dangerous with a firearm.

Since psychiatrists can label most anyone with any number of disorders, everyone could be deemed to have a mental illness and unfit to have a firearm.

Especially mass murderers, who nearly by definition differ from "normal". Meanwhile as this discussion illustrates, we can not predict who is most likely to commit a crime, just based on mental history. Gun control is therefore the right way to go.

I don't believe that any mental health records should have anything to do with gun control.... Violent crime records should be the only criteria for denying a citizen his/her right to keep & bear arms. I have a mental health record that won't quit; been hospitalized for 7 months when I was 9 years old, but have never/would never hurt anybody. And one of my special interests is firearms and shooting. Believe me, if I WERE violent, or had such as the remotest inkling to hurt anyone, I am very capable of doing so with my bare hands... No guns or knives required. But that's not my character, so it's not a possibility.

Charles

I don't think that it's unreasonable to make the eugenics comparison. Competition for money and mates is mean enough to be close anyway. Isn't it kind of the norm to try to knock your neighbor out of contention and the gene pool?

Anyway, I like having a decent job and romantic options, and I take it seriously when I'm not allowed to have at least what I've earned.

Not really. Humans are social animals; we have instincts to compete, but we also have prosocial instincts to protect, defend, and cooperate. Altruism is an evolutionary advantage, and those who do not care about others are at a disadvantage. Humans often gain advantage by helping each other and building relationships they can depend on, rather than by competing with each other. A solitary, competitive human has only his own strength to depend on; an altruistic human can depend on the strength of everyone in his community.

As for guns: Mentally ill people do not have an increased risk of violence, if you control for drug abuse. I think the connection between substance addiction and violence is probably not a cause-effect relationship either; it is probably due to an underlying tendency toward impulsivity. But crazy people are no more likely to be violent than people who aren't crazy, so that shouldn't be a criterion for gun sales.

However, people with mental illnesses are more likely to commit suicide, and are more likely to do so if there is a gun they can get with little trouble. We should try to protect these people by making it more complex to buy a gun. Not impossible--because if a person with a mental illness wants to commit suicide and doesn't have a gun, he'll do it some other way--but more complex, taking more time, since the big risk with suicide is that you'll just break down and do it before you can properly think about it, and guns are so quick and deadly to commit suicide with that you might not be able to back out if you wanted, the way you might be able to if you decided to climb to the roof, or take a bottle of pills, or whatever. So I would support some wait periods, and possibly (though I'd want to look into the statistics) make it illegal to buy a gun if you had attempted suicide in the past however-many years. Not all guns, though. Some guns, you just can't hold to your head and pull the trigger at the same time, not without using your toes or a string or something. So we might make an exception for, say, shotguns.

The best indicator of possible violence is a past history of violence. So if you want to prevent gun violence, then keep guns out of the hands of violent people--that is, people who have a history of violent crime. If you could do that, then you might refuse to sell a gun to the guy who beat somebody up when he was twenty, so that when he's twenty-five he's holding a knife instead of a gun when he gets into a fight, and the guy he would've shot at can run more safely. Or he gets busted for having a gun illegally.

Also, decrease regulation on less-lethal weapons--stun guns, pepper spray, that kind of thing; heck, even pit bulls--so that people looking for self-defense have options other than having to kill somebody. That way people who have a violent past aren't left defenseless.