And that Cho kid shouldn’t have been able to either. I am bipolar type II and depressed, experienced childhood mental and emotional abuse and drug problems and yet would be considered totally harmless and allowed to buy a gun after the regular waiting period. But I don’t think I should ever be able to buy a gun. When you have suffered from mood swings, drug binges and severe rages like I have in my past, you can be a danger to people. I am on medication and have long since stopped taking drugs like LSD, cocaine and meth, but what if I fell off the wagon for some reason? Say my fiance leaves me at the altar and I recall being sexually molested as a child and I find out that the asshole who fired me a few years back is moving next door to me and I stop taking my medication and start hanging out with tweakers? What if I have a psychotic episode due to stress or just snap for no reason at all?
Of course, many people considered “normal” could also have a series of unfortunate events and freak out, but people with a history of drug problems, mental anguish or mental instability have little red flags waving above their heads. Cho was ordered by a judge to get mental help. At that same time he should have been removed from eligibility to buy a gun. He should not have been able to pass a background test. I think it is reasonable to prevent people with bench warrants, convictions related to stalking or severe drug abuse, and people with mental issues from buying guns.
So I guess I’m saying I think that gun control needs to be tightened up. Not only should felons be denied guns but so should people with a history of violence or mental issues. Including me and that rat bastard Cho.
You’re right, which is why people who have been committed or convicted on drug charges generally cannot get a gun. However, what is a “history of mental problems”? If you have family problems and you go to see a family counselor as a teenager, does that constitute a history of mental problems? How about if your parent puts you on Ritalin?
Since I was a kid there has been a pretty dramatic redefining of what constitutes a mental disorder. There are drugs of all shapes and sizes for mental problems. Should diagnosis or drug use be automatic disqualifiers?
You can make the argument that Cho should have been committed. That would have disqualified him from eligibility to buy a gun. But he wasn’t, and that is more a question of societal norms, facility overcrowding, and general reluctance to potentially ruin someone’s future over what may be a minor issue. In his case it wasn’t, but it’s a very thin line in some cases and clearly even the professionals can’t always get it right.
So, where does that leave us? Do we deny everybody who ever saw a pshrink, or do we leave it to the judgment of professionals who may occasionally get it wrong? Tough question.
I hardly think that’s a tough question to answer. We leave it to the care of professionals, and then go after the professionals if they were negligent in doing their duty. To do anything else increases the likelihood that people who need professional help will avoid getting it, due to potential problems in the future.
Yikes, that is scary. I mean, forget the gun, I just want to know if Ghanima is allowed to drive. Person knows they are that unstable and likely to snap at any moment like that… Seriously, get some help before you hurt yourself of others.
You want to go after people that are in a field based entirely upon judgment? It’s not a precise science. It’s not like they can x-ray you and find psychosis.
You try that and in a few short years there won’t be any such thing as a mental health facility, because there won’t be any doctors to staff it.
I think a diagnosis would have to be made. If someone goes to a therapist for marital counseling or grief counseling or similar, that is not a significantly potentially dangerous mental illness. I’d suggest conditions such as bipolar disorder, severe depression, drug addiction, schizophrenia, psychosis and the like; diagnoses that have an associated risk to the patient or others. I don’t think ADHD or depression without an associated “risky” condition should qualify. I think the professionals would have to work it out.
Obviously some people who wouldn’t have ended up killing people will be ineligible. But in my opinion that’s a small price to pay for the prevention of weapons falling into the hands of the mentally unstable. I have no intention of murdering someone. But I personally don’t mind being made ineligible if it also prevents someone like Cho from assembling an arsenal.
I know what it means. But what constitutes negligence? For that matter, if you’re going to put such an extraordinary burden on mental health professionals, why should they ever declare anybody they ever see for any reason sane or cured? If they let them go and they snap, doesn’t that constitute negligence? Because, as you surely noticed, negligence has a precise definition, what with such words as “undue”, “insufficient”, and “reasonable”. Those words surely leave no room for judgment, do they?
Are you seriously arguing that, because there’s room for judgement in whether or not a decision was negligent, all mental health professionals are going to be sued/jailed out of existance in “a few short years”?