Comments on: Armed And Dangerous
Law Bans Sale Of Firearms To People With A History Of Severe Mental Illness
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- "Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom."
-- President John F. Kennedy, January 29, 1961
a-human-right.com - Reply to this comment
- This news story was slanted, biased, and fell far below the journalism standard I would expect from 60 minutes. This piece gave the impression that every mentally ill person who receives treatment in a psychiatric facility is violent. As a psychiatric social worker, I know that this is a false and stigmatizing stereotype, which discourages people from seeking needed treatment. I was also appalled at the interviewee in this piece referring to people as "mental defectives" -this is reminiscent of the views of Nazi Germany. Only a small number of mentally ill people are violent. Rather than violating the civil rights of mentally ill citizens by placing their names in an FBI database, which is a huge civil rights violation, it would make far more sense to have a database of people who showed a tendency toward violence, such as persons arrested for domestic violence, who have had restraining orders placed against them, and who have made threats to kill others. However I don't believe either database would prevent such acts of violence. Felons are not allowed to buy guns, yet many of them still obtain them and perpetrate acts of violence. I feel it would be far more effective to adequately fund services to the mentally ill, the poor, and other disenfranchised persons, while addressing the societal causes of violence.
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- I'm extremely concerned about the quality of reporting in this story. While the issue is timely, you have used footage from an interview with NMHA President Michael Faenza taken more than four years ago. Did you know that Mr. Faenza was terminated and escorted from the building in 2005? He has not been affiliated with the group for two years.
Further, as you referenced, they have relaunched under a new name. Clearly, 60 Minutes remained current enough to capture a shot of their new name, logo, and building, but you were too lazy? careless? biased? to conduct a CURRENT interview with MHA's President, Dr. Shern.
Perhaps using the canned footage allowed you to weave a particular story, since Faenza's quotes are unpolished and taken out of context. Why not give the mental health advocates the opportunity to share CURRENT positions, the same opportunity you provided the NRA? I would imagine that you could have incorporated any number of past interviews with the NRA to paint a very different picture.
How/why did you make these choices? Extremely disappointed in what I believed to be a reputable news source.
-J - Reply to this comment
- Regarding the gun ownership priviledges of people with mental illness, apparently those in favor have never firsthand experienced someone with psychosis. Allowing those who have little touch with reality have no business with firearms of any type. As in most things, common sense should prevail and a simple flag in the database should result rather than the full medical records of an individual.
John Warmath - Reply to this comment
- Regarding the gun ownership priviledges of people with mental illness, apparently those in favor have never firsthand experienced someone with psychosis. Allowing those who have little touch with reality have no business with firearms of any type. As in most things, common sense should prevail and a simple flag in the database should result rather than the full medical records of an individual.
John Warmath - Reply to this comment
- We also need to prevent mental illness in the first place. The kind of mental illness Seung-hui Cho had was caused by DNA mutations in the sperm of his father. How can I know this well it could be check through technology, but barring that autism/early childhood schizophrenia is found in children of older fathers. Paternal age is a robust, dramatic risk factor. See the autism prevention blogspot. Another risk factor is a family history of autoimmune disorders. Certainly a family history of schizophrenia or autism spectrum disorders predisposes one to have an autistic or schizophrenic child. If the mother's father was older when she was born she may have the genes for fragile X syndrome or another form of autism. Seung-hui Cho's father was either 38 or 39 when he was born. Well within the age range when autism strikes offspring.http://autism-prevention.blogspot.com/
Men cryobank your sperm in your mid 20s-30 and you will avoid age related infertility too. - Reply to this comment
- It's unfortunate for the functional mental health but something has to done about the gun buying. Mental health should be registered like communiable disease carriers. Come on already you never know who's going to go off. If you don't take your meds you will be unstable. The list could be the mental health who are not compliant with their treatment. Mental health does not have the rights to bear arms if they are unstable.
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- It's unfortunate for the functional mental health but something has to done about the gun buying. Mental health should be registered like communiable disease carriers. Come on already you never know who's going to go off. If you don't take your meds you will be unstable. The list could be the mental health who are not compliant with their treatment. Mental health does not have the rights to bear arms if they are unstable.
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- Funny thing happened 40 years ago, it was decided that many of the people in mental health facilities were being falsely imprisoned; as a result thousands were released. Thousands have been killed since by a few of those that would have otherwise been committed.
This raises two questions. How many lives are worth the freedom of a few crazies? And since we are all at risk of false accusations, how many lives is your personal freedom worth?
In retrospect we all know who the real crazies were, but prospectively it is much harder to tell.
I don't have an answer, but this is how I see the problem. Personally, I like my freedom so I like things the way they are. By the way, my 11 year old son was murdered by a nut, so don%u2019t think I don%u2019t have empathy for other victims. - Reply to this comment
- Regarding the gun ownership priviledges of people with mental illness, apparently those in favor have never firsthand experienced someone with psychosis. Allowing those who have little touch with reality have no business with firearms of any type. As in most things, common sense should prevail and a simple flag in the database should result rather than the full medical records of an individual.
John Warmath - Reply to this comment
- Dear foy6669,
SecondAmend,
If you read the papers and see the TV news, you would know that action taking by women suffering from postpartum depression to kill their children is not by gun shot, but by drowning, stabbings, strangulation, over medicating and or poison. I can't remember a time when I saw where a mother suffering from postpartum depression killed their child with a gun. Please help me understand your point.
Posted by foy6669 at 08:19 AM : Apr 30, 2007
My point is this - a person in this state of mind KILLS! Do we as a society really want to willingly allow them the access to a weapon that makes killing ones child/self so easy as pulling a trigger? At least by drowning, stabbing, strangulation they have to put a little effort into it . . .
Maybe we need to wait until someone with post-partum psychosis/depression - (or schizophrenia, or any other 'mental disorder') goes on a killing spree and murders 30-40-50 people in a public venue. People who as law abiding citizens are not allowed to carry guns on their persons to protect themselves against such lunatics - yes I called these people lunatics who commit these violent acts - because it is illegal to posses such weapons in "places of public venue" in most localities. Yes, that makes sense. Lets wait for this to happen, then lock them down but not until that time! - Reply to this comment
- Banning antidepressants could work better than more gun control laws. Many murderers and other homicidal maniacs are on antidepressants and new research says antidepressants can make people even more suicidal.
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- i guarentuee that if cho couldn't have gotten a gun from the sources he did, that we would not be here talking about this today. Cho aparently was very isolated and would have had no other options. His story probably would have ended with his so called girlfriend dead along with just himself........
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- SecondAmend,
A follow up to my initial comments to SecondAmend. Women don't use guns to kill themselves or their children. How does this have any effect on whether or not a person with a mental illness should have their medical record maintained on a national data base. Please help me to understand your position. - Reply to this comment
- TGOUWS,
I once asked and attorney how do you distinguish a person with a mental illness from someone who just murders, rapes, trotures and or any other heinus violent crime. In addition to her practice she represented children from parents of domestice violence which she had done for 16 years. Her answer, I've been doing this so long that I can looked into their eyes and tell they are just evil. It sounds to me you she could most likely do that with you. - Reply to this comment
- You are perpetuating the stigma and a previous posting is correct, this issue could lead to destroying people's lives because once upon a time they had some issues.
posted by willpl
ummmmmm are you loco??
How in the world could not being able to buy a gun destroy a persons life???????????????? what they wouldn't be allowed to do their life's dream of topping cho's record of 32 people killed??? - Reply to this comment
- I was extremely disappointed with the one sided report. Why does this have to be a national issue that further humiliates people that are demeaned or ignored when they do seek assistance. Worst yet are the drugs that are suppose to help them are time and time again found to further aggrevate an already precarious situation. When are the drug companies and doctors going to be called to task for their disregard for the patients.
I would be on that list because of an extreme stress situation and a medical problem that my knowledgable doctor wrote off as mental. If I had continued to listen to him for six more months I would not be here to write this email.
Mr. Kroft I would love to have your life truly investigated and see if at any time in your life you made decisions or reacted in a way that could be considered irrational, if only for an instant. The disdain with which you spoke to the MI advocate makes me think you're just a little irrational when it comes to this issue.
You are perpetuating the stigma and a previous posting is correct, this issue could lead to destroying people's lives because once upon a time they had some issues.
What IF you had to have a reference to purchase a gun...an employer, or local law enforcement, or the school that young man attended. Would anyone have given him the reference? Would it have made him think twice about purchasing them legally? But again as previously posted, there is the illegal purchases to consider. - Reply to this comment
- More dead people required! If the bill to prevent mentally ill people from buying a gun is not passed now. It will pass the next time a mentally ill person kills 200 people. The body count is simply not high enough to convince congress!
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- SecondAmend,
If you read the papers and see the TV news, you would know that action taking by women suffering from postpartum depression to kill their children is not by gun shot, but by drowning, stabbings, strangulation, over medicating and or poison. I can't remember a time when I saw where a mother suffering from postpartum depression killed their child with a gun. Please help me understand your point. - Reply to this comment
- This is a clarification of my previous post,"..the next great struggle of humankind. That of human rights versus tyranny!" This has has been the struggle from the beginning. And we've come so far as of late. But, there are times when we advance and times when we slide backwards. At this point in history a slide backwards by the United States could lead to a new "dark ages" that will make all that went before pale by comparison. Will some future civilization say,"how could they let this happen to themselves and how can we learn from their tragic end?" Well, will it come to that Mr Kroft?
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