Quote:
Originally Posted by smarbrit
I am not misinformed, I'm stating simply that this thread started as a result of a mass shooting in an elementary school killing young children and for the last 3 pages of this thread that I read back through has been focused on individual rights to bear arms and the reasons thought to be justified in doing so, not about the children, not about their families, not about those affected, but your ongoing debate about owing guns.
Drunk drivers kill, children are aborted, people od on drugs, people die, yes. Those children had no chance because a lunatic attacked them as his mother had the right to own guns.
Mental illness is completely misunderstood both by those affected and those treating it. I know, my step son is battling mental illness, recently came off his meds bec he thinks he can handle it. As a family we are doing all we can to keep him on them, but he poses no danger to society or us.
Yep, misinformed.
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This is exactly what I mean. When there are known mental health problems in a person and then there is a change in behavior, such as med non-compliance, it is then time to intervene beforehand, not after something happens. Unfortunately, however, that is one of the areas in which the mental health system is broken. Education is an issue too; the VA Tech shooter's mother decided he needed an exorcism versus inpatient psychiatric treatment.
Im sure that the mother of the Sandy Hope shooter did not think her son would ever be capable of doing something like this, as partially evidenced by the fact that she is the one who introduced him to guns and took him to the shooting range in an attempt to 'bond'. She did not use good judgment to say the least.
To me, she should have had adequate support in her life with raising a mentally ill child from mental health services, who would have educated her about having firearms around someone who has the potential to be unstable. Maybe this particular tragedy could have been avoided.
But, that's my point; mental health services need to be expanded, and more resources allocated to the treatment of mental illness. More research needs to be conducted, and authorities have to be able to intervene earlier in psychiatric crises.
We also need a better understanding of human psychology--both at the level of the brain and at the level of genetics, so that we might identify genetic markers that would indicate certain disorders before they fully manifest.
Taking rights away from mentally healthy and responsible people is not the answer, because those ambitions will do nothing to solve the problem.