The Topic of Gun Control and How it Relates to Recent Mass Shootings

The issue at hand is how to identify those mentally ill prone to violence from general population. Sounds like he is saying more measures should be taken to keep those mentally ill from the general population once they are indentified as such. Apples and oranges.

This is entirely a conjucture on his part. He should have not said that as a physician.

I agree sensible approaches should be taken towards mentally ill prone to inflicting harms. For examples, if the family of a patient reports that the patient has been acting dangerously strange, there should be funding and resources to evaluate the patient, confine the patient if necessary. I am not sure if these rules have not already been in place. What I am against is relying on co-workers, classmates, neighbors, etc for identifying these behaviors. What a mess might that be? Imagine a neighbor reports so and so in the community he/she believes is suffering a mental ill and dangerous, resource needs to be dispatched? What if the reporting neighbor is a little sensitive and has other motives. Even the law enforcement under the current standard is subject to scrutiny to show a reasonable cause, which is not much, but at least some check. Are we going to impose this standard on neighbors, co-workers, classmates, etc: e.g., if your report turns out to be very unreasonable, you are subjct to penalties. I think this is going to be a mad house.

 

I'm far more concerned about the government enforcing standards that can declare people mentally unfit for anything than I am about the government making sure people don't have assault rifles.

 

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That's exactly what's he's saying. What apples and oranges are you talking about?

Concerning patient confidentiality, there are standards and practices already in place for mental health experts to report on a patient they feel is a danger to themselves or others. The general public has access to similar methods, such as Child/Adult Protective Services, or simply just calling the cops. The problem is that the general public is by and large very ignorant of the subject, and that ignorance can be dangerous.

Experts speaking out is a step toward public education. The author was 100% RIGHT to say what he said, and I'm glad that he did.

Where did you get that from? No one is talking about the government enforcing any such standards. The issue at hand is lack of funding re: care for the mentally ill and education re: mental illness to an ignorant public. While a judge might issue the final order from a legal standpoint, it's the medical staff responsible who are the ones evaluating patients and making declarations re: mental fitness, not the government.

 

I agree with most of what you said there, but I think these approaches are less effective than stricter gun controls like banning automatic weapon while have even more potential to "endanger" the Const. There were no indications that Lanza or Holmes were suffering extreme episodes so obvious to otusiders. What would it take to identify them? Base on my reading of that piece, he seems to suggest if a person known to be schizophonic act weird, that person should be reported and evaluated? What standard can a lay person be educated on to report such? You said similar methods as those used by experts, but what are they? I imagine those methods cant be that rigorous, or otherwise you are calling for training general public to be experts on mental illness. This sounds good on paper, but really not all that clear in terms of how effective and "legal" it is in the effort to prevent mass shootings in the public in future. In a similar vien of scapegoating gun owners, isnt this also sort of scapegoating the mentally ill? Out of how many schizophornic people, were there mass shootings committed by them? Why can't we just simply remove dangerous weapons from them? As far as I know, this country has way better heath care for the mentally ill than many other countries, for example China, and yet have far more mass shootings by the mentally ill than those other countries. Why is that?

As to the apples and oranges, that entire sentence I quoted, if you read carefully, centers on "people who have horrifically distorted thinking", i.e. the Adam Lanzas, the Jame Holmes as known aftermath. It seems to me he is saying that those people's legal rights interfere with those of general public. Well, duh. Even if I agree with his general tenet in that sentence, it is just not relevant to the issue here. None is arguing that Adam Lanza, James Holmes should have their rights not to be confined even if they had been identified dangerous. He lost me right there.

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>America's gun control utopia marks 500th homicide since Jan 1 <a href="http://t.co/zFTsF15s" title="http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/Overnight-Shooting-Marks-Chicagos-500th-Homicide-185036691.html" org_href="http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/Overnight-Shooting-Marks-Chicagos-500th-Homicide-185036691.html">nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-roo…</a> <a class="hashtag" action="hash" title="#WereNumberOne">#WereNumberOne</a></p>&mdash; David Burge (@iowahawkblog) <a href="https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/284703757961412608" data-datetime="2012-12-28T10:54:00+00:00">December 28, 2012</a></blockquote><script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>The city of Chicago (pop. 2.6 million) has as many gun homicides as Los Angeles County (pop. 9.9 million).</p>&mdash; David Burge (@iowahawkblog) <a href="https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/284705776092708864" data-datetime="2012-12-28T11:02:01+00:00">December 28, 2012</a></blockquote><script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Chicago has as many gun homicides as the state of North Carolina (pop. 9.6 million).</p>&mdash; David Burge (@iowahawkblog) <a href="https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/284709059800743936" data-datetime="2012-12-28T11:15:04+00:00">December 28, 2012</a></blockquote><script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>The city of Chicago has more gun homicides than AK, DE, HI, IA, ID, ME, MN, MT, ND, NE, NH, RI, SD, UT, VT, and WY combined.</p>&mdash; David Burge (@iowahawkblog) <a href="https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/284714597154443264" data-datetime="2012-12-28T11:37:04+00:00">December 28, 2012</a></blockquote><script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Texas has 2.2x as many gun homicides as Chicago. Texas has 10x the population of Chicago.</p>&mdash; David Burge (@iowahawkblog) <a href="https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/284716708722270209" data-datetime="2012-12-28T11:45:27+00:00">December 28, 2012</a></blockquote><script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

So what's the point?

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Why does Chicago, with an ethnic and socioeconomic profile nearly identical to Houston, have almost 2x the gun homicide rate?</p>&mdash; David Burge (@iowahawkblog) <a href="https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/284722154732408833" data-datetime="2012-12-28T12:07:06+00:00">December 28, 2012</a></blockquote>
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It's freakin' cold there during the winter? There's something in the water? What are you suggesting?

I might add that Chicago has a significantly higher rate of unemployment compared to Houston. Just an FYI.

 

Chicago has always had issues. And gun control in a localized area is worthless. Too easy to go a few miles and buy.

I do think their lack of a concealed carry law is ridiculous. Then the only ones packing are definitely the criminals.

 

Automatic weapons have been banned since 1986. As to "endangering" the constitution, well, yeah, that concerns me.

I'm not calling on the general public to be "experts." I'm advocating for public education and awareness to help recognize when and where a problem might exist.

With kids, teachers are often the first to recognize that there is a problem. With adults, it's their friends and family. The issue is what happens after that, which all goes back to evaluation by a professional, and professionals having the support and resources to follow up. Where it often falls flat is a variety of attitudes and/or excuses: "Oh, it's just a phase;" or "Oh, just east right and exercise;" or "Oh, just pull yourself up by your bootstraps," etc. This applies to ADD/ADHD, depression, anxiety, drug and alcohol use/abuse/addiction, abuse/neglect at home or just plain odd and/or isolative behavior.

I'm repeating myself here, but "what it would take" is, again, increased care for the mentally ill via increasing funding and public education. People misuse terms like schizophrenia and psychosis all the time, and thus do not have even a rudimentary understanding of what these terms actually mean. People do not have a basic understanding of autism or Asperger's. People do not have a proper understanding of common disorders like depression and anxiety. People do not understand relatively simple concepts pertaining to anger management and/or distorted, black and white/concrete/absolute thinking patterns, and the list goes on and on.

The point is that public education would go a very long way toward removing the stigma of mental illness and increasing awareness of the same. We've done this for physical health with increasing awareness re: obesity, exercise, tobacco use, and sexual activity. We've done this for the environment with increased awareness re: recycling, pollution, and deforestation. Have we "fixed" these problems? No, of course not, but the point is that people are aware, and are thus fighting for these things, and as a result there have been massive government and grass-roots campaigns, and this has resulted in positive change. There is absolutely zero reason we cannot do the same for mental health.

How in the world is this not relevant? I get that people are looking for a scapegoat (guns, in this case), and yes, I agree that none of the shooters should have had such easy access to guns, but the guns themselves are symptomatic of the root problem: in all of these shootings, mentally ill people did not, for whatever reason, receive the care that they needed.

 

This is pretty much the point pro gun activists are trying to make. Nevermind trying to overturning the 2nd amendment, There are simply too many guns out there to outlaw and it would take decades to get them off the street to make the difference. In the mean time, law abiding citizens would be defenseless.

The whole "banning all guns" argument is just ignorant.

 

There's different ways to approach it, and a lot of time will be in all of them.

No one outside those affected by victims will call for a next day ban. I mean we have half the world's guns for crying out loud.

 

more guns, less violence

 

Violent crime started declining 2 years before the election of Barack Obama. The purchase of guns had leveled off a year before the election of Barack Obama. Barack Obama is elected President and then there is an enormous increase in the purchase of guns. Violent crime continues to decline. Your chart shows something, all right, but it doesn't show a correlation between the sale of guns and the decline of violent crime. It shows a correlation between the election of Barack Obama and the paranoia of a segment of the American gun owning population. And you can draw your own reasons as to why that occurred. What I find amusing amongst the disturbing aspects of the graph you provided is that during Barack Obama's first term, during that enormous spike in the purchase of firearms, the President did nothing to restrict gun sales.

Ironic, isn't it. Thank you for providing the graph. If I may ask, where did you find it?

 

500th Chicago murder marked by gun violence in gun-free city.

http://news.yahoo.com/chicago-reaches-500-homicides-fatal-shooting-145951769.html

 

Showing the need for stringent controls nationally...

 

Or... that law enforcement has been more effective... no way to show a direct correlation between more guns owned and reduction in violent crimes.

 

That graph can show correlation, but it can't show causation.

I can produce graphs that show that, as gun ownership went up, the sales figures for Care Bears videotapes went down. That is clearly proof that guns saved the world from Care Bears, right?

 

Everyone knows that guns are good deterrents to Care Bears.