Moiraine Posted February 20, 2018 Share Posted February 20, 2018 I do find it hard to believe that someone who kills a bunch or people who meant him no harm doesn't have mental health problems. And... mental health problems are defined as such by society. I'm guessing most of society would agree that anyone who does what he did is mentally ill. The question is whether his illness was diagnosable. 2 Link to comment
TheSker Posted February 21, 2018 Share Posted February 21, 2018 1 hour ago, knapplc said: One person having mental health issues doesn't mean that everyone who shoots up a bunch of people have mental health issues, or that it's the root of the problem. The man responsible for the worst mass shooting in American history has no diagnosed mental health issues. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ These are the type of things that are said that keep real change from happening. I could see the mental health community or ACLU saying something like this. I an certain of this......shooting up a bunch of people should not be considered "normal human behavior". Period. 2 Link to comment
Moiraine Posted February 21, 2018 Share Posted February 21, 2018 (edited) If you want to find out how to stop gun violence, whether it's a mental health issue or not, don't vote for Republicans. Especially not the ones backed by the NRA. In 1996, the Republican-majority Congress threatened to strip funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention unless it stopped funding research into firearm injuries and deaths. The National Rifle Association accused the CDC of promoting gun control. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/10/04/gun-violence-research-has-been-shut-down-for-20-years/?utm_term=.18308c8f897f Edited February 21, 2018 by Moiraine 3 Link to comment
NM11046 Posted February 21, 2018 Share Posted February 21, 2018 (edited) Zero women in the above data/graphic. Guess somehow they're not mentally ill to the same extent? Also - seems like a lot of light colored skin ... just saying. If it's mental health wouldn't there be more representation from all creeds colors and sex? Edited February 21, 2018 by NM11046 Link to comment
LumberJackSker Posted February 21, 2018 Share Posted February 21, 2018 If Trump and the Republicans are as great as they claim to be why dont they just take on both issues gun control and mental health? 1 Link to comment
Ric Flair Posted February 21, 2018 Share Posted February 21, 2018 I’m not sure why people turn this into a mental illness vs. easy access to firearms debate. I don’t see them as mutually exclusive and think both are factors. We decided decades ago that we weren’t goong to make a serious commitment to funding treatment for mental illness. As a result, hordes of people with severe mental issues wander the streets untreated. We decided hundreds of years ago that we weren’t going to restrict gun ownership. It doesn’t seem likely that our musket owning founders foresaw the devastation that automatic weapons could cause. Americans own more than 300 million guns. Taking them away is a complete non-starter. But there are all kinds of reasonable restrictions that the vast majority of Americans would support. Thorough background checks that keep dangerous people from owning guns, eliminating gun show sales, making automatic and semi-automatic weapons or the kits to convert them illegal for most people, etc. The goal should be to keep the most dangerous weapons from the most dangerous people...and you could easily drum up wide bipartisan support for that. 2 Link to comment
Moiraine Posted February 21, 2018 Share Posted February 21, 2018 6 minutes ago, Ric Flair said: I’m not sure why people turn this into a mental illness vs. easy access to firearms debate. I don’t see them as mutually exclusive and think both are factors. They're not. The GOP brings up mental health so they don't have to do anything about access to guns. They then do nothing about mental health. 3 Link to comment
Ric Flair Posted February 21, 2018 Share Posted February 21, 2018 34 minutes ago, Moiraine said: They're not. The GOP brings up mental health so they don't have to do anything about access to guns. They then do nothing about mental health. What have the Democrats done about either issue? Pointing fingers and assigning blame is why nothing ever gets done. 4 Link to comment
Moiraine Posted February 21, 2018 Share Posted February 21, 2018 (edited) 1 hour ago, Ric Flair said: What have the Democrats done about either issue? Pointing fingers and assigning blame is why nothing ever gets done. I'd prefer if you looked that up. I'm heading to bed now. It took me all of 2 minutes to find this, but haven't read the whole thing yet. What you're saying might be true for many topics but not this one. The reason nothing gets done is because the GOP and NRA don't want it to get done. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-many-gun-control-proposals-have-been-offered-since-2011/ Quote Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-New York, who retired from Congress in 2015, spent 18 years on Capitol Hill fighting to renew the assault weapons ban, close the gun show loophole or ban high-capacity magazines. Her husband was killed and her son was severely injured when a gunman shot passengers on a Long Island Rail Road commuter train in 1993. McCarthy repeatedly introduced these proposals in every Congress, but none of them passed muster. The National Rifle Association's (NRA) stranglehold over Congress is largely responsible for the inaction. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the NRA spent more than $3 million on federal lobbying efforts in 2013 and 2014. In the 2016 elections, the powerful gun group has some $14 million to spend in the 2016 elections, and NRA Executive Director Chris Cox vowed to target members perceived to be interfering in the rights of Americans to bear arms. Edited February 21, 2018 by Moiraine 4 Link to comment
BigRedBuster Posted February 21, 2018 Share Posted February 21, 2018 Good. But, it’s pathetic that this belief has been fostered. 1 Link to comment
knapplc Posted February 21, 2018 Share Posted February 21, 2018 9 hours ago, Ric Flair said: hordes of people with severe mental issues wander the streets untreated. Couple of questions about this. Where is the evidence that this is true? If the gun violence problem is a mental health issue, where is the evidence that America has more mentally ill people than every other first-world country? 8 hours ago, Ric Flair said: What have the Democrats done about either issue? Pointing fingers and assigning blame is why nothing ever gets done. If there's no proven link between mental health and gun violence, why would the Democrats need to do anything about mental health in order to fix the gun violence problem? Because doctors do not agree that the gun violence problem is a mental health issue: LINK Quote “The concept that mental illness is a precursor to violent behavior is nonsense,” said Dr. Louis Kraus, forensic psychiatry chief at Chicago’s Rush University Medical College. “The vast majority of gun violence is not attributable to mental illness.” Better access to mental health care, including for those who might be prone to violence, is important, but “to blame this all just on mental illness is not sufficient,” he said in an interview Friday. The AMA has supported efforts to boost gun violence research, ban assault weapons and to restrict access to automatic weapons. Barbe wrote in his column that federally funded research is crucial to address an “urgent health crisis.” Under gun industry pressure, U.S. government research on firearm violence has been limited for decades. And all Congress is doing is paying lip service to these two separate - but important - topics. They passed a toothless bill in 2016, but they still haven't implemented it into an effective law. Two years later. LINK Quote “We are committed to working with state and local leaders to help secure our schools, and tackle the difficult issue of mental health,” Trump said in his first public comments about the latest mass shooting in the United States. Democrats accused the GOP of misdirecting the national conversation, arguing that while mental health might be part of the solution, the focus must be on gun control. “We should fix our mental health system, but we can’t let the gun lobby get away with suggesting that mental health is the problem,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said in a statement. “Improving mental health treatment will help a lot of people and it’s the right thing to do. But the U.S. has the highest rates of gun deaths – not because Americans have higher rates of mental illness than the rest of the world, but because it’s so easy for people to get their hands on deadly weapons.” Ryan pointed to a 2016 mental health measure passed by Congress as one way in which Republicans have responded to mass shootings. “Look, we passed mental health legislation two years ago because of the underlying mental health problems that were behind these shootings,” Ryan told reporters on Thursday. But that law does not focus on the issue of guns and mental health, and would instead create new grant programs and install an assistant secretary for mental health. Now that the bill has been signed into law, Ryan says it needs to be implemented. 1 Link to comment
zoogs Posted February 21, 2018 Share Posted February 21, 2018 (edited) It’s ludicrous to suggest that the party that has for years tried to expand access to health care in the face of continued, determined resistance to even the most modest and conservative of measures has “done nothing” about mental health. Some real whataboutism there to justify treating both the gun control and anti-gun control people as dumb about the issue. Of course, neither side is dumb — they just have very different priorities. Failing to realize where the blame lies is exactly why nothing gets done. The people who stop this from happening are the problem. Our indifference keeps them in office, blind to the possibility that having people who refuse to support gun control measures could be the reason for gun control measures always being voted down. Edited February 21, 2018 by zoogs Link to comment
BigRedBuster Posted February 21, 2018 Share Posted February 21, 2018 1 hour ago, knapplc said: If there's no proven link between mental health and gun violence, why would the Democrats need to do anything about mental health in order to fix the gun violence problem? Unfortunately, that won't be studied because of this President. Link to comment
commando Posted February 21, 2018 Share Posted February 21, 2018 these kids are under assault from the far right...god bless them 2 Link to comment
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