General Discussion

Tommy_Carcetti

(43,182 posts) Sat Dec 15, 2012, 10:31 PM Dec 2012

Mental illness and our nation's gun problems are not mutually exclusive concepts.

After the recent gun tragedies, all the resident gun enthusiasts have quickly jumped and claimed, "It's not a gun problem, it's a mental illness problem! Don't talk about guns, talk about mental illness!" as if to somehow absolve the gun aspect of the recent tragedies.

My question is, why cannot we ask about both? Are they somehow mutually exclusive?

2 replies

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Mental illness and our nation's gun problems are not mutually exclusive concepts. (Original Post) Tommy_Carcetti Dec 2012 OP

Personally, mental health is something we can actually do something about Recursion Dec 2012 #1

Seems pretty obvious to me that there are questions about why some gun owners are absolutely a patrice Dec 2012 #2

Recursion

(56,582 posts)

1. Personally, mental health is something we can actually do something about

Reply to Tommy_Carcetti (Original post)

Sat Dec 15, 2012, 10:33 PM

Dec 2012

Access to weapons (in my opinion) isn't, for the most part, in any realistic way.

patrice

(47,992 posts)

2. Seems pretty obvious to me that there are questions about why some gun owners are absolutely a

Reply to Tommy_Carcetti (Original post)

Sat Dec 15, 2012, 10:46 PM

Dec 2012

threat to our safety and well being, while other are not and would never be.

But, I'm pretty sure that I don't want to think about that exclusively in terms of mental health, because ECONOMIC factors figure very powerfully in this situation too.

That said, I hope more people will say this as often as possible in as many places as possible to as many people as possible: We need Mental Health parity in health care insurance coverage, right NOW.

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