[technochick99]

Yes, I am quite sure the anti's wrestled with this issue...

[technochick99]

fyi

[THEUPMAN]

Very few people are denied guns because of mental illness:

but coming soon....

if he wants a gun ..... he must be crazy.

[Morgan's Raider]

Another kicker -- we've got a whole generation coming of age many of whom have been proclaimed to have "ADD" or "ADHD", which can be construed as mental illnesses, and have been doped up- er, "treated" with Ritilin, Luvox, and other mind-altering drugs. Think the Brady Bunch wouldn't like to have this information made readily available and used to deny perfectly normal people their Second Amendment rights?

[Standing Wolf]

Leftists are to American civil rights
as the A.I.D.S. virus is to health!

[harpseal]

The "Mental Health System" has many problems not the least of these being a lack of clear standards as to what actually constitutes mental illness. Post traumatic stress disorder is one example of an ill defined mental illness that may or may not affect many. If we go to a situation that a person must "prove" their sanity and is presumed unfit to possess a firearm than that is defacto total revocation of any right to keep and bear arms. While it may be possible with some tests to determine that a person has a major psychiatric problem it is just about impossible to prove the absence of a problem. Further as with all illnesses people do recover, even with no treatment.

The problem we as a society face is that we ccan not make the rules govrerning the majority tailored to the few who are severely mentally ill. In the case of the school bus driver he was operating a vehicle which could inflict at least as much damage as any rifle and no one questions why a person with such a mental history was in that position. This alone should show the questioners as disingenuous.

When it comes to the VA turning over records for vetrans I am incensed. I also have a real problem with the VFW for not actively oppossing such turn overs. Many vetrans who have gone to the VA for assistance were never adjudicated as having a mental problem that rendered them a danger to themselves or others.

How do we handle those who go for greif counseling? Should such a decision be grounds for revocation of a constitutional right? Clearly if one looks at the RIGHT to keep and bear arms the same way one looks at the Right to vote one gains a clear understanding that the loss of the right to vote requires a judicial proceeding. Would we as a society revoke a person's sufferage because of a visit to a psychiatrist? Clearly the resounding answer from the same people who wish to restrict the right to keep and bear arms has been an emphatic and resounding no.

Now we come to the ability of many mental health professionals to diagnose mental illness. Such a diagnosis is not objective and clear. It is an opinion based upon study and the mental outlook of psychiatrists and psychologists. Like the rest of the population there are competent and incompetent practitioners. Like the rest of the population there is an incidence of mental illness among these people. There are some who would argue that due to the nature of these professions there is a higher than normal incidence of mental illness in these fields but that is clearly not an indictment of any individual in these fields.

Mental illness is a disipline that has been subject to political pressures over the years. The delisting of homosexuality as a mental illness was an example of political pressure being applied. In the former Soviet Union political dissent was seen as a symptom of mental illness. An entire Gulag of mental insiututions existed. This entire issue is so fraught with dangers to personal liberty that it is definitely better to keep any revocation of rights totally within the judicial realm. Let any medical records stay out of the state's hand unless or until the issue comes before a court.

Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown

[packrat01]

applicants for a new gun license must get a doctor's letter stating that they are medically and psychologically fit to have a gun.

I gotta wonder how many doctors are willing to risk a civil suit by writing that someone isn't wacky.

[tarawa]

Did you notice that all the gun-grabbers were labeled as "spokesperson" or noted a generalized affiliation with the gun-grabbing group, while the sole representative of a 2nd Amendment organization (well, it was the NRA, but I guess that's still pretty close ;) )was listed as a "lobbyist"? Yeah, this was an example of unbiased reporting.........

[Redbob]

Privacy, H*ll!, this is a mental-health issue, just like the "homeless" are in truth a mental-health issue.
There are just a small minority of people who are incapable of functioning in our society - a society, by the way, that most will acknowledge is becoming increasingly complex.
To protect both themselves and the rest of us, many of these people need to institutionalized, or "re-institutionalized" in the case of those who were cut loose back in the '70's when it was PC to do so.

[gieriscm]

Virginia considered passing a law last year which would have barred anyone who had been voluntarily committed from purchasing a firearm. An SAS member whose husband had been treated for prostate cancer spoke passionately against it. Some of the lesser-known side-effects of chemotherapy treatment are psychological, and people can appear "mentally ill" while on chemo. After the husband was successfully treated and stopped the chemo, the psychological effects also stopped.

After hearing that the delegates killed the bill in committee. None of them wanted to be responsible for putting cancer patients in jeopardy of losing their civil rights!

[2nd_Amendment_Defender]

And yet how do you make sure a person who shouldn't have a gun doesn't get one? It's something we have wrestled with for a long time.

A statement you would only hear from a gun control advocate.

Here we have hundreds of people dying every week in car wrecks and she is talking about how to get rid of some more guns.