Yeah, schizophrenic does not equal depression. Neither are all schizophrenics created equal.
Many States and the Federal government have restrictions or prohibitions in place preventing certain classes of people with mental illness from possessing, transporting, or purchasing firearms (rather prevented people from selling to them.)
The problem in a lot of cases is what’s generally a good idea–“crazy people shouldn’t have guns” can break down in application. Up until fairly recently, civil commitment was a very easy process. Someone entirely sane could end up civilly committed and in a psychiatric hospital for some time before being released. That single commitment, even if it never should have happened, would in many States and at the Federal level bar that person from ever owning a firearm again (and in many States bar them from ever voting again.) It’s gotten a bit harder to civilly commit people these days, typically also temporary “safety holds” aren’t usually (though they sometimes are) considered true “commitments” any longer. Nowadays you have some level of protection against willy nilly commitment, but in some cases it’s still kind of easy to end up in a psychiatric facility without any physician ever saying you belonged there.
For that reason I’m a little afraid of the general idea because we’ve already tried laws like this for the mentally ill and in many cases I think we’ve unfairly removed both voting and firearm ownership rights from persons who may not be mentally ill at all, and/or we’ve removed such rights from people who may be mentally ill but may not be any threat to society and may be capable of making rational decisions.
I can’t get on board with any diagnosis of depression reducing your rights, that’s far too much of a blanket. Most people with depression do not harm other people, hell most people with depression don’t harm themselves. Nor do most people on anti-depressants. I guess if a physician feels like your depression or the drugs you’re on make you so untrustworthy that you should not have firearms I don’t know that I want that person loose in society. That sounds like a good point to start saying “is this guy safe from self-harm or harming others out in society at all?”
What I could get on board with is on release from a psychiatric hospital, part of the release order basically saying “while this person has been judged not to be a danger to themselves or others we feel the unique circumstances of this person’s state of mind means the possession of firearms is not currently suitable and they should be barred from owning them until such time as [some review committee] judges the person safe to own and possess firearms.”
But I don’t like blanket laws and regulations, I’m fine with some committee of physicians with a mental hygiene commissioner or a judge being there to review it, putting this sort of limitation on someone being released from a commitment. But anyone who takes anti-depressants or who has a depression diagnosis? No, I don’t support any automatic abridgment of their rights.
