dstieger wrote:After nearly any 'mass shooting', we hear a lot about keeping guns from mentally ill....or 'controlling mentally ill'...or something about guns not being a problem, but the mentally challenged are a big part of the problem. It is often tossed out as a retort to calls for gun control of any sort.
And, it makes sense...to a point. Why would anyone want people with mind problems running around with guns?
But any attempt to get my head around "OK...so....do what, exactly?" is met with near immediate migraines. I mean, do we want every shrink to toss names into some national 'NO-GUN' database? What about non-treated nuts? Parents? Neighbors? Should the cop that found you nearly passed out on the boulevard one night ten years ago be able to ban you from guns? For how long? Life? Who here hasn't displayed what someone might considered mentally-challenged-type-behavior at some point? Sure, there's plenty out there that 99% of people would say "Yep! That's a whacko who shouldn't be allowed within 100 yards of a .22." But, sure have a hard time the the entire rest of the spectrum....I don't see how you get to a place that even a large majority might agree to definitions and processes
There are other issues. I am an avid firearm collector, but even I recognize how laughable our NICS background check system is. I am close friends with a guy who was dishonorably discharged from the army after being put on psychiatric hold. I also know that he simply walked into a pawn shop and bought a .357 mag just by lying on the paperwork. We walked out in like 20 minutes. Easy as that. Of course, his psychological problems were bull**** he staged to get out of being deployed, but that wasn't what his record shows. Made no difference.
On the other hand, I got detained for about half an hour because one of my NICS checks because some dip**** in another state had my exact same name, and a criminal record. Nevermind that I gave my them SS#, I was still flagged and had to go through an extra layer of nonsense. Smh.
