"There is no real connection between an individual with a mental health diagnosis and mass shootings. That connection according to all experts doesn't exist," says Bethany Lilly of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law.
and over 300 million legally-owned firearms in the U.S. every year aren't connected to mass shootings.
this guy is an obvious outlier https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/r...s-shooter-in-white-settlement-church/2283777/
Warehousing everybody who is deemed mentally Ill in the 19th and early 20th Centuty was a horror show. Also, NRA loses their minds when people have a temp hold placed on gun ownership for mental health reasons. If guns and asylum were uttered in the same breath they'd immediately see a plot to turn all gun owners into political prisoners and start threatening civil war.
I think you guys have this perception that future criminals get their guns from Nico the neighborhood thug on the corner selling guns out of the trunk of his car. In reality they just steal them or buy them from law abiding citizens or they buy them out of the back door from gun dealers. So having 300 million "legally-owned firearms" creates as the gun nuts like to say, a target rich environment for theft. You guys also have this notion that there are these good guys and bad guys running around. In reality, as is often the case, they're all law abiding good guys until they kill someone.
This is the big myth about mental health and its connection to gun violence. There really isn't a strong correlary. It doesn't take a person with a diagnosable psychosis to shoot one or multiple people. It just takes someone with access to a gun having a very bad moment. I love the way Yang puts it. "If everyone had a button on their body that they could push and they or someone else would disappear, it would be a catastrophe, because even the strongest person has weak moments." Yes, the will to push the "erase human" button is the heart of the problem, but removing the button is part of the solution too because we simply cannot expect to eradicate the will entirely.
Great shot by the former deputy sheriff to take him out cleanly and swiftly. Does a regular joe make that shot? Who knows, and it's not worth debating. That's the problem here - the amount of time spent debating useless junk. You can ban all guns tomorrow and the 300 million (registered, probably another 50 million unregistered) aren't going to magically be handed in. Nor will the black market die down. Angry idiots will find ways. Mental health, entitlement and an endless culture of "want, want, deserve, more, bigger" are the problems. The first step is admitting the cultural change that needs to occur.
By this defeatist logic nothing should be restricted or banned ever. Some things create sufficiently negative outcomes regularly enough that the existence of a black market would actually be preferable.
by this defeatist logic we should take a real hard look at legalizing drugs just like we legalized alcohol. Much of the "gun violence" problem would go away.
We absolutely should legalize (or decrim in certain cases) hard drugs following the Portugal model. Guns and drugs are very different things, however.
