People who are suffering from a legitimate mental illness have a very difficult time in life. I'm talking about a real illness though, not the one a lot of people get when brought to trial for killing someone.
I'm not sure if anyone here has ever been around someone who hears voices, or suffers from a diagnosed mental illness. It's pretty scary what these people go through. One of the problems is that these people need medical care but don't get it. They may have some visits to the doctor and get on some meds, but who makes sure they take them?
The jails are turning into mental health facilities but are not really equipped to be one, nor should they be. Medications help, but who makes sure the patients take their meds?
I'm not sure of this persons mental helth background but it appears something was wrong with her.
I'm not sure if anyone here has ever been around someone who hears voices, or suffers from a diagnosed mental illness. It's pretty scary what these people go through. One of the problems is that these people need medical care but don't get it. They may have some visits to the doctor and get on some meds, but who makes sure they take them?
The jails are turning into mental health facilities but are not really equipped to be one, nor should they be. Medications help, but who makes sure the patients take their meds?
I'm not sure of this persons mental helth background but it appears something was wrong with her.
I've got a friend who is a psychiatrist. And he tells me that you wouldn't believe the mentally unstable people who come into his office for a session, and say they are going to get a gun and kill so and so. Luckily most of these people don't follow through with their thoughts. But because of the small percentage who do, I think the government ought to make it mandatory that if a person wants to buy a gun, he must be willing to give up his or her privacy rights to their medical records that can reveal any mental instabilities in their background. And if there is a case of any kind of mental ilness revealed, they automatically lose their second amendment rights. 30 years ago we had very little of the kinds of killings we have now. It's only going to get worse in the future if they don't something about it.
Were there less killings like this 30 years ago or were they just not reported by the media? No internet, no CNN, Fox, etc...
It's a slippery slope when it comes to who should be able to purchase a firearm or not. I'm not sure if making someone produce their medical history is something that would work.
I like the idea of a waiting period though. There should be somebody checking the backgrounds of everyone who attempts to purchase a firearm. I'm not sure how cost effective that would be though. I know there are some waiting periods in some states but how effective is it?
The sorry fact is that stuff like this is going to continue. There are too many guns out there that are available by legal or illegal means.
I think ultimately the gov't knows it will be next to impossible to ban guns in this country. I've stated in previous posts that it would be easier for the gov't to just control the sales of ammunition. A person can have all the guns they want but without ammo they're pretty useless.
I don't remember nearly as many of the mass murders, especially school murders 30 years ago that we have now. The only one I can remember off the top of my head was the Austin Texas tower sniper killings back in the late 60's. But we've had a hell of alot of mass murders in the last 10 years. And for that fact the last couple years strarting with the VT murders.
The problems I have with the background checks they have now is they really don't get to the root of the problem, which is mental instability. You can have a nut case out there that has never commited a crime, but has had a long history of mental illness, completly fly under the radar screen and go out and buy a gun. And if you look at most of the people who have commited these mass killings, 4 out of 5 of them have had past mental problems that weren't revealed to the public until after the crime has been commited. I would like for these people to be screened before the trouble starts. And I'm sure most of the realtives of the victims who were needleslly killed would feel the same way.
Guns will never be banned from this country. I hate guns, but I believe in the 2nd amendment rights to own one. But like anything else that can be dangerous, restrictions need to be put on them. They need to make it even harder to buy guns at places like pawn shops and gun shows. And make it a class A felony to sell a gun illegaly to anybody without a background check. And like you said, the government control of the selling of ammunition wouldn't hurt.
I don't believe nearly as much as today. You only had the big three and then the print media really. With cable came the 24 hr. news channels. When Paris Hilton farts it's in the news.
I know there have always been murders. What I'm saying is unless it was Charles Manson or some other serial killer a lot of that stuff didn't make the national news.
These school murders are the worst. Whenever some kid kills his/her fellow students it's on the news constantly 24/7. I often wonder if it doesn't give other kids ideas about doing the same thing.
I'm not sure what the cause is. I grew up in the 70's and if you had a problem with someone you just had a fistfight, and when it was over it was over.
Nowadays some punk kid feels "disrepected" and kills you for no obvious reason other than his feelings were hurt.
Texas Fan first argues that it is a media issue of over reporting, that maybe there were as many mass shootings back in the 70's. Next we read that folks settled problems back then with fistfights. I don't see many degrees difference between Taliban kid floggers and US gun rights extremist who run the same line; that they have ancient rights (constitutional second amendment diddling) granting their collective cult the right to protect gun ownership violence as a lifestyle choice. Guns are a useless preventable health cancer in our society. Freak ownership rights. Same as ownership of 443 thousand yearly cigarette death tax on our hospital system, gun killing rights stop at 30 thousand violent deaths per year when I own the right to pay for the destruction.
