General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSo it's ok to let severely mentally ill people have guns?
But we have to have severe restrictions on Syrian immigrants who have never attacked anyone?
What kind of logic is that anyway.
Almost all of the attacks that have occurred in this country have been by mentally disturbed individuals.
Welcome to crazy land.
braddy
(3,585 posts)TexasBushwhacker
(20,222 posts)to have gone through the court system and be declared mentally ill by a judge. Most mentally ill people have not gone through that kind of hearing.
Obama's "law" was that Social Security should flag anyone who recieves disability payments because they are mentally ill or have another mental issue such as retardation. Getting SSDI is very difficult in most cases. Getting SSDI because of mental illness is VERY difficult and requires evalution by a psychiatrist.
So people getting SSDI because of PTSD, schizophrenia, autism spectrum, depression and bipolar disorder would not be able to buy guns. That protects society, but it also protects them from the most common means of suicide. It also protects them from law enforcement. When police are called regarding an armed mentally ill person, they have a tendancy to shoot first and ask questions later.
braddy
(3,585 posts)place.
world wide wally
(21,757 posts)sailfla
(239 posts)Eyeball_Kid
(7,434 posts)logosoco
(3,208 posts)they want to weaken the background checks for people on SSI if they are people who can't even take care of their own finances (cashing the checks and spending them). It seems very important for those people to have access to guns, but if you come from a part of the planet that has the kind of people they don't like you have to go through hell!
They also seem to want to live in a land where everyone carries a gun to defend themselves against anyone they think could be a threat, but woman are not allowed to decide if they want to give birth.
I try to teach my grandsons all that I can but I can't explain that they are living in a country with people who have these ideas.
underpants
(182,950 posts)"Them" could mean either part of this
arithia
(455 posts)statistics show that mental illness isn't a predictor of violent behavior and the mentally ill are far less likely to hurt others than "normal" people. Only 3-5% of violent crimes are committed by the mentally ill. They, like women, are more likely to be the victims of violence with a gun in the home than the aggressor. 10 times more likely to be victims than non-mentally ill.
https://www.mentalhealth.gov/basics/myths-facts/
While you can argue that anyone who would commit violent acts against another is "sick" in some way, it doesn't mean they have something to clinically diagnose.
What *IS* a reliable predictor of mass homicides and violence is a history of violence against women and other vulnerable social groups.
While I get your greater point about refugees, please don't peddle falsehoods about the mentally ill. It only furthers the stigma that gets so many of them killed by police. Over half of police extra-judicial killings are of mentally ill folks because they are assumed, incorrectly, to be more dangerous than "normal" people.