“Cracking down on gun ownership by people with mental illnesses is not the answer since people who have a diagnosed mental illness and are getting treatment for it – which are the only ones you’re going to know about – are clearly not the problem. They are getting treatment. They know what their disability is. They recognize when it’s happening. They are not the ones who are going to have a crisis and pull out a gun,” Eve explains. According to Eve, those prohibitions discourage people from seeking treatment. “It is not just not letting them have a gun. That’s not where it ends. Once you’re on some registry of people who are getting treatment for mental illness, you face all the prejudices and stereotypes, so who wants to be on that list?” These laws do not exist for other disabilities or illnesses. “It’s unfair and punitive, and it defeats our goals of getting people the help that they need,” Eve says. The Bazelon Center works hard to debunk these common myths and hosts congressional briefings to dispel the misconception of people with mental illness as ‘the madman.’ [More]
Right on. The old mental health blanket dragnet is just that.
I'd take these people's sincerity a lot more seriously if they didn't sponsor events featuring Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and Valerie Jarrett...
[Via Mack H]
2 comments:
Well, I agree with your last paragraph.
But she does say:
“It is not just not letting them have a gun. That’s not where it ends. Once you’re on some registry of people who are getting treatment for mental illness, you face all the prejudices and stereotypes, so who wants to be on that list?”
And that's exactly right. Good for her.
And good for you for being one of the few people (or the only one) who dares to speak on this issue in the context of the RKBA.
Now -- if only the GOP would understand.
So, by all means, keep fighting.
Too many subversives around. ;)
This is nothing but the old false equivalence argument. Anybody who makes it is either logically challenged, or dissimulating.
Most white people aren't Amish.
Most mentally ill people aren't spree shooters.
Most Muslims aren't terrorists.
Most blacks aren't violent gangstas.
All true, but it doesn't make the reverse any less true:
Most Amish are white people.
Most (nonpolitical) spree shooters are mentally ill.
Most political terrorists are Muslims.
Most violent gangstas are black.
And, as always, payingundue attention to people "on the list" is like looking for your lost keys under the streetlight. The threat is just as likely to come from the undiagnosed maniac, the thug with the unprovenanced gun, the noncitizen who shouldn't be here.
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