New Zealanders buying up guns as new laws proposed after Christchurch mosque shootings

a reply to: LordAhriman

Well, by simple extrapolation, if we are starting to discuss banning something which is an enumerated Constitutional Right (firearm ownership) because of a minority with condition that make that Right dangerous for them to exercise, then clearly we are prioritizing the minority over the majority... perhaps "Right" to be mentally ill wasn't the most accurate word to use, but how do categorize potentially infringing on the enumerated Right of 4/5ths of the population in deference to the inability to exercise that Right responsibly in the remaining 1/5th?

originally posted by: burdman30ott6

It's not that simple. About 30% of adult Americans own guns, so we wouldn't be affecting 70% of the population already. 20% of them statistically have some sort of mental illness.

So of 252 million or so adult Americans, 75,000,600 own guns. Around 15 million of them probably have a mental illness of some sort. So we're talking about taking a closer look at 6% of the adult population in America, and deciding whether or not they should be able to own a gun, based on their condition.

I am not anti gun. I don't care to own any, but I feel a responsible, sane adult should have the right to do so. I think a mental health evaluation, and declassification of mental health records if someone wishes to purchase one would be a good start.

a reply to: LordAhriman

My issue there is that we get back into the insincerity of many of those mental health diagnosis. It also negates the very real, very much covered up thanks to lobbying efforts misuse and dangers of SSRI drugs.

Take PTSD for example... I'd wager that anyone who comes home from a theater of war without PTSD is the individual who has serious mental health issues. Yet we have heard many left leaning politicians push for banning firearm ownership for anyone with a diagnoses of PTSD. There's no rationale to this as (at least prior to the HIPPA Act's obfuscation of these statistics and factors) the only PTSD sufferers who went off the rails were the ones taking the SSRI poisons that are so goddamned deadly the meds, themselves, caution users of "thoughts of violence and suicide" as not only known side effects, but common side effects.

On another front here, we routinely incarcerate people who are determined to be a danger to society and/pr to themselves following any violation of the law. An excellent example is Charles Manson. Manson never personally killed anyone, so by the letter of the law he should have been released years ago, yet he remains incarcerated because he is seen as a potential danger to society. So you're telling me it's better to infringe on the Rights of 80% of the population where the 2nd is concerned (and yeah, I'm talking 80% of the entire population because, regardless of how many Americans actually own firearms, all Americans have the enumerated Right to do so in absence of due process removing that Right on a case by case basis.) than to simply incarcerate anyone deemed too dangerous to safely possess a firearm? Why stop there, by the way? A car can be and has been used as a weapon, so those with mental illness probably shouldn't be allowed to own or drive a car. Knives... rope... baseball bats... hell, even fists can be used to kill someone, so if someone is truly mentally ill enough to pose a danger as a firearm owners, I'd argue they don't belong on the streets in any capacity as a free human being and should be behind bars for society's safety, not used as an excuse to infringe on the Rights of the sane and healthy.