we have a major problem

While we bicker back and forth on gun controll as a way to prevent crime we are actually ignoring the factor that really caused many of these shootings.

Mental health in this country is abominable and usually swept under the rug and treated with pills. This is akin to putting homes on stilits in flood zones sure your house is dry during small flood events but the first large event you lose everything. The same is true for medicating the illness into submission it will keep small mental breaks from causing to much havoc, however the first big mental break will most likely lead to tragedy. Even if the mental break does not cause the patient to kill school children it is just as tragic if the patient kills them selfs or a loved one.

I will give you a test, next time you go to the doctor for any reason physical or mental and you have insurance look at the perscription you are handed. I am sure its a new drug that there is no generic for and more importantly not even really the best course of action for your condition. The doctors recive kickbacks and incentives to sell you these drugs and are not really looking out for your best interests.

Treating a mental illness is an often lifelong process that requires much work on the doctors part and medication
does play an important role. However more and more psychologists and therapists are just scrawling down a perscription and leaving the patient to take these meds as perscribed. This is counter intuitive as a mental patient will certainly stop taking them for any number of reasons alowing themselves to become much more likely to suffer psychosis or an extensive and often deadly mental break. This is a complex issue that banning all or just certain fire arms will do little or nothing to prevent. We need to creat a detailed and complete plan to adress mental health in those who are in great risk of falling into this catagory.

The reason we are not being pointed in this direction is a lot of the meds being perscribed will cause more harm than good over the long run and cause those pharmaceutical companies to lose much more than just a little money. They could potentiality lose it all and no one from our government to the fine folks in the media wants that as they wont bite the hand that feeds. Big pharma buys the lions share of ad space on news networks and pays a lot to lobby in washington.

Yet how to test if one will, at some point in life go over the edge, yes any one who wants to buy a fire arm should take some kind of mental test to see if they are unstable or will be unstable in the years, weeks or days to come.

If by taking test it is determined that one will, then no sale!! one can lie through there their teeth unless documented, is there not a back ground check?

Or the ability to have in possession a fire arm. How nuts does that sound ?? Entirely.

Another option is ban the sales of fire arms to Postal workers , and or person(s)
that have living with them any one that has a mental issue, anti depressants, sleep aids , or take other medication. even a person that gets a flu shot, or not receives a flu shot.

Vets should not be allowed to own buy or have in possession any weapon this includes retired cops, teachers or ones that have hold public office, Dick Chaney comes to mind on this one.

Now is there any left that can own a fire arm ??

Cops should be banned form them as well, until they can hit 5 out of 5 this would mean no need for a glock.

Armed forces should be band too for if there is an assault weapons ban and more than 10 rounds mags, should this be applied to the armed forces as well???

Security does not need them , one shot one kill should be the motto, but then they do not shoot when they need to... Gifford and Reagen remember them?? Now who is left to own, buy, or posses a fire arm ??

Do you have too ask??

Only the out laws for they will get, have, and use them no matter what.

Brings to my mind the Phil Dick novel "Clans of the Alphane Moon" which envisions a bleak future where nearly everyone is insane. I consider his works eerily and frighteningly prophetic, much like 1984 by Eric Blair.

Perhaps the best course of action is to have inhome visits by the doctors or a therapist to insure and evaluate if the treatments are indeed working and having a case worker assigned to those at risk to help give recomendations and oversee that the care being provided is in the patients best interests. I know this is expensive and a strain on an already crumbling system but cannot possibly cost more than making regulatory task forces for any firearm bans that may be generated currently. Also no price can be placed on the lives that will be saved and improved through better mental health care.

reply to post by oasisjack


Hey guy, newsflash! The doctors are the ones administering the drugs that are making people mentally unbalanced. And you want to grant them greater powers?

reply to post by oasisjack


I agree with you. But let me ask you do you see the mental health community standing up to the pharmecutical companies?? or even just standing up for what they know is right and for what they know is right for their patients. and not just to put another classification on the patient that there last class or seminar that they took told them how to classify it as.

I dated a woman who is a therapist and she would say that this how the class that she took told her how to classify certain patients. and I was wondering at the time. and I was wondering at the time why do you need this big text book or whatever to show you how to classify and categorize an individual. when you can just use your heart and your compassion. and find what this individual is lacking and what this individual is needing and why they are having problems.

reply to post by bekod


Most if not all people at risk are discovered while at school as most teachers have a degree in psycology and often inform parents and officials if somthing is causing alarm after that a cursery reveiw by a psycologist could help treat any issue long before it becomes to late. Only afew defined mental illnesses are cause for alarm to future violence. Multiple personality disorder, schizophrenia , borderline personality disorder to name a few.

Unfortunitly big pharma will sqaush any opposition from doctors if it threatens profit. They have already corruped the FDA and sucsefully neutered it. And judging based on your heart or feelings can get you sued into oblivion in this society hence the need for case studies and large books of classifications. I would argue veterans deserve more than most to posese any fire arm as they are fully trained and more importantly first hand experinced in the results of thier use.

reply to post by bekod


yeah I somewhat agree some kind of mental health testing should be done. But we can;t just simplfy theissue and say take a test to get a firearm. And I am not even sure what test should be done myself. But there are pyschopaths and sociopaths the latter is more adepth at lieing and telling you what you wanna hear. so soem standarized testing is gonna be like cake for them to pass.

I would leave testing regulations and methods up to top professionals with a consistant track record of patient improvement rates. And lycard tests are hard to fool unless you have a psycology degree.

reply to post by jasonl1983


Not all doctors or therapists behave that way their are a few who truly care and wish to help hence using their track record as a qualifier for that kind of position

Make it so that people can easily experiment with psychedelic therapies and the mental health issue could be solved.

But no-oo- we gotta have our precious war on drugs

reply to post by oasisjack


Honestly part of me wants to ignore the mental health issue because I KNOW the knee jerk reaction will be for people to cry for the government to get involved...and as someone whose career in the last 6 years has been in the mental health industry...the only thing that scares me MORE than the government controlling guns...is the government getting involved in "mental-health control"....

I can tell you for a FACT and I have the state-emails to prove it...that Dr.s are rallying for legislation that makes it EASIER for them to MEDICATE MORE!!! not less....not more carefully...but easier for them to force meds without having to "go the legal rout"...they want to re-write the laws so they can IM anyone who comes off even a little heated...

a lot of the patients here refuse meds and this drives the Dr's up the wall...because they have to go a legal rout and show legitimate proof and evidence that there is a need for "court ordered meds"...they basically want to skip that process and become GODS themselves with the unabated power of discretionary use...

I really really don't want to see the government get more involved in mental health than it already is...I don't know how else to address it but I can guarantee you that putting it in the governments hands is no good...no good at all...

I understand your position and government involvement is not the savory method but it is obviously a huge issue and probibly the crux of these shootings. But a true solution is rarely easy to come by.

reply to post by BlueMule


You might want to delete that video embed. A word to the wise.

I agree, we do have a real problem, many of them in fact. The problem is when one finds the best solution to one problem he/she will most likely create many more to leave in its wake. I feel in my case I look at all the problems that have been on a lot of our minds the last month and ask myself what the best answer is, only to then become angry and or just down right frustrated with what the best answer really is. Maybe its the "I want my cake and too eat it to" mentality? Less guns? I don't like that. More guns? Well I don't like that either. Armed guards? While I feel it might make it safer, I really don't want my kids subjected to that every day just too get the already sub-par public education they already obtain. The question of mental health? Well I think a lot stricter screenings are for sure in order, I don't want to treat everyone with the slightest mental illness like they are not entitled to the same quality of life I myself expect. Like I say all these issues it is easy to find one on both sides of the fence. Frustrating about sums it up for me