I own a gun, I'm pro-gun ownership.
What I don't understand is why for some gun owners it's SO all or nothing.
To me it is common sense that a person with a history of mental disorders that cause self harm or a strong likelihood of harm to others should not be allowed to own a gun.
That would be the stance of ANY responsible gun owner.
All mental disorders? No. I have aspergers syndrome. That in and of itself doesn't cause severe depression, anxiety, or psychosis, and shouldn't on its own interfere with a person's right to firearms.
But if I started expressing signs of severe stress, self destructive or outwardly destructive? Heaven forbid that should ever happen but if I ever lost that sense of perspective to severe depression or anxiety, I should hope that the first thing people would do is take away my access to firearms.
I agree, got PTSD, no gun! What's wrong with that limit?
I do think that followup screenings are a reasonable option, many folks with PTSD can be helped with therapy, many people who are depressed are so due to pretty horrible life circumstances that in time pass and they can move on. A few years ago, over the span of one year, around 15 people among friends and family, 3 of them who practically raised me as a child when my parents were unable to, passed away. The two people who would have been in my normal support network as friends had horrible life altering circumstances themselves, one of them having to deal with a permanent new illness that almost killed her.
I didn't seek therapy, but I DID give my gun to a family member to hold in safe keeping until I had processed my grief and anger, and I would say that it was about two years before I felt confident in my own reactions.
Ideally everyone would be as responsible as that, but when grief or anger causes a loss in perspective, many people view it as a form of security and refuse to part with it, all the while becoming more unstable and likely to use it wrongly.
I'm sorry, but however much the all-or-nothing folks would like to deny it, mental health issues do cause a significant increase in gun related injuries and death that could be easily avoided.
I do realize that the fear is that rules regarding mental health conditions will keep increasing and expanding. Yeah, that's a risk. There is a very big risk that once more rules are put into place about conditions like depression and anxiety, and PTSD, it will expand.
To use myself as an example, instead of looking at the subset of aspies who overlap with depression or anxiety, they might ban gun ownership for all of us.
That would reflect a failure on my part, other high functioning aspies part, and mental health professionals who know the truth about the condition. I should hope we won't fail in the education of a fearful public, but I'm aware that it could happen.
And yet, I'm willing to chance it, even knowing it would put my own right to own a gun at risk.
I see no difference between those entirely opposed to guns and those people on the other extreme who refuse to see reason when it comes to limit firearms. It's the same all-or-nothing fearful extremism.
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