"Mentally Ill Should Not Have Access to Guns" - Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL)
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I have a huge problem with this blanket statement. While I agree that people who are currently or have recently been institutionalized for manic episodes or severe mental breakdowns should not have access to guns until they no longer show those signs, what about the many people in this country who are mentally ill but are medicated and are responsible gun owners? This is the trap of "gun control." I'm a liberal and those on here who have argued with me know that is an undeniable fact, but I do not agree with blanket statements like the one used today by Florida Governor Rick Scott. The 2nd Amendment gives everyone the right to own guns and you only lose that right if you commit a violent crime and serve time in prison for that felony. Those with felonies should not be able to get guns but they do because no one enforces the laws on the books. There are literally THOUSANDS of laws in place that are specifically designed to stop the wrong people from getting guns yet they are not being enforced properly.
My dad is a legal gun owner. He had to go through background checks to obtain the multiple guns he owns and had to get a license to carry his pistol outside of his home. He had to do that because of LAWS ALREADY IN PLACE. Why are some people being held to that standard but others aren't? That's the conversation we need to have because "gun control" is not the answer and is unrealistic to accomplish. The moment we begin naming classes of people who cannot own guns (outside of convicted criminals) is the moment we begin the slippery slope into naming larger classes of people who cannot own guns. My partner, also a legal gun owner, is responsible and does not show off his gun in public or threaten people with it. If we were to one day find out he's bipolar and needs to be put on medication, I wouldn't want him to lose his right to own a gun.
I think people are jumping to too many conclusions because of these mass shooting incidents and are not realizing that the Constitution clearly defines this issue. We all have the right to bear arms and unless someone has committed a felony and has served prison time for that felony, that person has the right to own a gun legally. If people want to crack down on gun violence, then crack down on the illegal purchasing of weapons. If people want to focus on the mentally ill, then fund health centers that deal with mental illness instead of slashing their support from state budgets. You can address the mentally ill separate from infringing on the rights of the people to own guns.
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I have a pretty extensive collection of guns and other weapons. Including a few assault rifles and military grade big guns.
Do I hunt with an assault rifle? No. Those are for one kind of prey and one alone. People.
Why do I keep them?
As a gay man, I have carried weapons since I was a kid and have only had to use them a few times in three decades. But I like the security of having a weapon that can take out a group of intruders fairly quick. Be it thugs or some state-sponsored bunch of nazi scum.
But America is in a bad place at the moment.
For being the land of the free? We have more laws on the books restricting freedoms than any other 1st world nation, including Russia and China combined.
We have the largest prison systems than all first world nations combined and it keeps growing by 10% every year.(Thanks to privatized prisons). In the state of Florida, if you go to jail, you are responsible for your daily cost to a prison corporation. After you get out, you will be given a bill for your stay. If you don't pay it? You lose your drivers license and any other valid form of state ID. Still don't pay? You go back to jail and it starts again. This is all in addition to all the money the state and feds give them.
Then we have law enforcement killings. Law enforcement in America kills more people each year than all the other 1st world countries combined. Percentage wise, we are even higher than African countries.
Then there are the murder rates. Americans kill each other at the highest numbers than most the rest of the world combined.
Then we have a justice system that is based on your social status and size of your bank account. Add to that some states that will give you the same if not worse sentence for a drug possession than to kill someone. If you get charged with rape in most of America, you will spend more time in prison for rape than if you kill and dump the body. Its all in the way the system works. Kidnapping is the same as killing. So whats the incentive to not kill?
Americans have made their choice in what kind of society they want. Its a violent one and by living in it I will stay armed to the teeth. -
I have a pretty extensive collection of guns and other weapons. Including a few assault rifles and military grade big guns.
Do I hunt with an assault rifle? No. Those are for one kind of prey and one alone. People.
Why do I keep them?
As a gay man, I have carried weapons since I was a kid and have only had to use them a few times in three decades. But I like the security of having a weapon that can take out a group of intruders fairly quick. Be it thugs or some state-sponsored bunch of nazi scum.
But America is in a bad place at the moment.
For being the land of the free? We have more laws on the books restricting freedoms than any other 1st world nation, including Russia and China combined.
We have the largest prison systems than all first world nations combined and it keeps growing by 10% every year.(Thanks to privatized prisons). In the state of Florida, if you go to jail, you are responsible for your daily cost to a prison corporation. After you get out, you will be given a bill for your stay. If you don't pay it? You lose your drivers license and any other valid form of state ID. Still don't pay? You go back to jail and it starts again. This is all in addition to all the money the state and feds give them.
Then we have law enforcement killings. Law enforcement in America kills more people each year than all the other 1st world countries combined. Percentage wise, we are even higher than African countries.
Then there are the murder rates. Americans kill each other at the highest numbers than most the rest of the world combined.
Then we have a justice system that is based on your social status and size of your bank account. Add to that some states that will give you the same if not worse sentence for a drug possession than to kill someone. If you get charged with rape in most of America, you will spend more time in prison for rape than if you kill and dump the body. Its all in the way the system works. Kidnapping is the same as killing. So whats the incentive to not kill?
Americans have made their choice in what kind of society they want. Its a violent one and by living in it I will stay armed to the teeth.There are reasons for why this country has become so pro-prison, but I'll save that discussion for another day.
I actually agree with most of what you said here. I don't think there are any other plausible solutions except to buy a gun and if you live in a state that allows conceal or open carry then get the license to do so. Americans have indeed made our choice and it's time to face that reality. We have a Constitution and unless it's changed as it has been before, we have to live by the text of it especially when it comes to the 1st and 2nd Amendments. I've always felt like the first two are our most important Amendments. My friends always push back against me on that; saying the 13th is the most important, but if someone tries to physically enslave me like those disgusting antebellum Southern savages did my ancestors then they'll get a bullet between their eyes. We all have the right to defend ourselves and that would clearly be self-defense.
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Speaking as someone on the outside looking in- I do understand the need for gun ownership for protection and hunting purposes. However, it really feels like it has been taken to an extreme level and needs to be reined in.
For instance- would assault rifles and automatic weapons really be needed for hunting or self-defense?
And as for mental illness- as much as I see your point about responsible, medicated gun owners who have minor mental illness, as a point of public safety, I personally would feel better with stricter restrictions.In the end, the statistics speak for themselves. Places like Australia and Japan have proven that limiting gun ownership leads to a big drop in gun related deaths and shootings. So really it becomes a question of what is more important- the lives of potential future victims, or the freedom to carry.
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While I hate "gun control" as most often defined by liberals, I do support gun control.
We've had this discussion before. I hate that Colin Ferguson (Long Island RR shooter) can be legally declared a nut case in the state of New York, but he can go to Virginia and buy a gun. Anyone legally declared a nut case, anywhere in the US, should not be allowed to buy a gun anywhere in the US.
Also, it seems that a lot of school shootings involve kids who were bullied and the schools did nothing about it.
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Automatic weapons are illegal in the US, without a special license and extremely strict condition.
If you want to restrict guns like other countries, then you have to realize that violence doesn't end there. The UK has extremely strict anti-gun laws, but people are still being shot and knife crime is through the roof.
You are 7 times more likely to be physically assaulted in the UK than you are in the US.
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Speaking as someone on the outside looking in- I do understand the need for gun ownership for protection and hunting purposes. However, it really feels like it has been taken to an extreme level and needs to be reined in.
For instance- would assault rifles and automatic weapons really be needed for hunting or self-defense?
And as for mental illness- as much as I see your point about responsible, medicated gun owners who have minor mental illness, as a point of public safety, I personally would feel better with stricter restrictions.In the end, the statistics speak for themselves. Places like Australia and Japan have proven that limiting gun ownership leads to a big drop in gun related deaths and shootings. So really it becomes a question of what is more important- the lives of potential future victims, or the freedom to carry.
We have several historical divides that remain in our society and these historical divides are the main catalysts for our violence and support of gun culture. Sorry to say, those historical divides aren't going to be resolved anytime soon. The "browning" of America contradicts the purpose of America in the eyes of millions; therefore, many feel like they should own guns to protect themselves from the "brown" people. That's just one part of the problem and not even the biggest. You also have deeper conflicts between the haves and the have nots, between conservatives and liberals, between different religions, etc. Inner city violence is magnified when you throw in the fact that most inner cities have gun bans; however, their neighboring states and even neighboring counties do not; meaning hundreds of thousands of criminals are purchasing guns from nearby counties and states with either lax regulations or no regulations at all. It simply would be too much of an effort to make the many, many red conservative counties change their ways and implement better background checks and procedures to stop illegal sales.
That's not to say there are no laws in place, we do have laws in place to stop illegal gun purchases but they're not enforced. We arrest the person after he shoots someone, but not the gun owner who illegally sold the weapon to the criminal. Sometimes it's because the serial numbers have been scratched off but most of the time it's because officers know who will get arrested if they track down the gun seller and it's not common to go around arresting a super majority of white men living in deep red counties outside of urban cities.
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We've had this discussion before. I hate that Colin Ferguson (Long Island RR shooter) can be legally declared a nut case in the state of New York, but he can go to Virginia and buy a gun. Anyone legally declared a nut case, anywhere in the US, should not be allowed to buy a gun anywhere in the US.
But where should the line be drawn? Someone could have had a manic episode years ago, declared legally insane, got help and managed to balance their mental instability with reality and pose no threat to society. Should they not be able to purchase a gun to protect themselves because of one manic episode years ago? If we go down that route, my side is going to pounce on and begin the slippery slope and you know that. Today it will be to keep anyone who has been declared legally insane at one point from getting a gun and tomorrow it will be to ban anyone who once got into an argument from getting a gun or anyone whose neighbor tells the government, "I don't think he should have a gun because he once sprayed my house with water during an argument." Once we go down that route, there's no going back and it could very well lead to a change in the 2nd Amendment. If someone is declared legally insane, their current state of mental health needs to be the biggest factor in determining whether they can own a gun or not.
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We already have this with conservatorships over the estates of the mentally ill. They can regain control of their affairs once they can show they are mentally fit. We could use the same kind of system for guns.
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Switzerland is the most heavily armed nation, and yet has practically no homicides. Same can be said of Japan, in which they are disarmed. On Australia, the data is inconclusive, as their experiment is in the relative youthful stages of long term data. Australia has seen a spike in violent crime recently, but I would refrain from using them for comparison purposes until there's at least ten more year worth of data to draw from.
However, in the United States, the problems are much more complex. Do you live on a rural ranch in New Mexico near the US-Mexican border where cartels are as heavily armed in many cases as the US military? Do you live on a rural farm in Kentucky where your neighbors maybe in high end meth production in a county with literally just a couple of law enforcement officers available? The problem is trying to narrow down the problems of such a vast country into a few simple statements.
Truth is the law already prohibits the mentally ill & felons from legally purchasing guns. However, the loopholes are astounding because the money was never invested to get all 50 state to use the same database. Then, with state by state HIPPA laws, mental health professionals are too afraid of being sued by their patients to do the due dilligence on what is needed, and in other states, felons are often granted full rights back so that they can vote, which in some states include gun rights. There's alot to unpackage to have real reform.
Speaking as someone on the outside looking in- I do understand the need for gun ownership for protection and hunting purposes. However, it really feels like it has been taken to an extreme level and needs to be reined in.
For instance- would assault rifles and automatic weapons really be needed for hunting or self-defense?
And as for mental illness- as much as I see your point about responsible, medicated gun owners who have minor mental illness, as a point of public safety, I personally would feel better with stricter restrictions.In the end, the statistics speak for themselves. Places like Australia and Japan have proven that limiting gun ownership leads to a big drop in gun related deaths and shootings. So really it becomes a question of what is more important- the lives of potential future victims, or the freedom to carry.
