but so did the other four and all on the same issue.

They all made the same mistake using mass-murder as the stereotype of gun violence, and all scapegoat mental illness as the cause.

That's the universe for ya, Cubs beat Cards, that had to be offset.

disappointment, dissatisfaction, and powerlessness in any other frame.

Lack of words is why all 5 candidates go with loading more stigma on the mentally ill?

If that's true they deserve my non-support even more.

Other cultures/countries seem to have an acceptance of modesty and what we'd call "settling."

Here, if you don't grow up to be rich and famous, it's seen as a personal failure.

Men are angry about that.

What's your fallback option?

Can you honestly say that someone who commits mass murder is mentally well? I don't think so...

Before much was understood about various problems like bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety disorders, panic attacks, schizophrenia, post traumatic stress disorder, etc., and other, more sociopathic problems, they were all lumped together as "mental illnesses" and stimatized as be a moral failing of the sufferer.

Our terminology has not kept pace with our knowledge and our knowledge is no where near what we need it to be.

I don't think it's 'loading more stigma on the mentally ill' to acknowledge that a healthy mental state would not be shooting up churches and movie theaters and that mental health care should be readily available and included in our health care discussion

I still say the national epidemic of poverty, helplessness, and disenfranchisement are major contributing factors to mass shootings and suicides.

how they replace empirical reality with emotional events, and how despite protestation otherwise, and pander to people who make even more mistakes of reasoning, deeper mistakes in empirical reality and who buy into popular memes held by such a mistaken public.

Yes, one issue that reveals much.

Sanders is quite upset about unemployment among minorities and he uses it to suggest he's tuned into their concerns. Unemployment among people with mental illness in 2012 was 80%. No mention of discrimination and injustice toward the group he and the rest see as the only action that can get around the NRA.

I have to admit that gun control is not the main issue I vote on. Respectfully, I would like to point out two things:

1. Under the ACA, treatment for mental illness must be given 'parity' with treatment for physical illness, but it isn't being enforced. The insurance companies are being allowed to weasel out of it.

2. Based on numerous laboratory studies in psychology that show rats who are overcrowded and live in miserable, stressful conditions are more violent than rats that are not overcrowded, are fed regularly and are comfortable. That suggests to me, pretty strongly, that if all Americans had more economic security, healthcare they didn't have to worry about, the opportunity for a free education, strong support for working families, higher wages and better job opportunities, it is much less likely that people would flip out and commit gun violence. I believe such living conditions might even reduce the incidence of some mental illness.

That said, they are all for better background checks and Sanders is against assault weapons. Those are both decent positions.

The think I like the most about Sanders, and why I'm supporting him, is that he's the ONLY one to talk about reforming the corporate tax code to ensure that the $2 trillion in untaxed profits being sheltered offshore is taxed and these corporations pay their fair share.

But the climate change answer from Bernie, that it was the biggest threat - he's right on that one. If we keep going like we are, in a century who has guns will be a moot point because we'll all be dead and the earth a smoking cinder. Got to keep the old planet habitable, you know.

Anyway, good luck!

This from almost a year ago. Available to all 5 campaigns with 60 seconds of google searching.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4318286/

Abstract:
Four assumptions frequently arise in the aftermath of mass shootings in the United States: (1) that mental illness causes gun violence, (2) that psychiatric diagnosis can predict gun crime, (3) that shootings represent the deranged acts of mentally ill loners, and (4) that gun control “won’t prevent” another Newtown (Connecticut school mass shooting). Each of these statements is certainly true in particular instances. Yet, as we show, notions of mental illness that emerge in relation to mass shootings frequently reflect larger cultural stereotypes and anxieties about matters such as race/ethnicity, social class, and politics. These issues become obscured when mass shootings come to stand in for all gun crime, and when “mentally ill” ceases to be a medical designation and becomes a sign of violent threat.

Conclusions:
Our brief review suggests that connections between mental illness and gun violence are less causal and more complex than current US public opinion and legislative action allow. US gun rights advocates are fond of the phrase “guns don’t kill people, people do.” The findings cited earlier in this article suggest that neither guns nor people exist in isolation from social or historical influences. A growing body of data reveals that US gun crime happens when guns and people come together in particular, destructive ways. That is to say, gun violence in all its forms has a social context, and that context is not something that “mental illness” can describe nor that mental health practitioners can be expected to address in isolation.

<snip>
Current literature also suggests that agendas that hold mental health workers accountable for identifying dangerous assailants puts these workers in potentially untenable positions because the legal duties they are asked to perform misalign with the predictive value of their expertise. Mental health workers are in these instances asked to provide clinical diagnoses to social and economic problems.114 In this sense, instead of accepting the expanded authority provided by current gun legislation, mental health workers and organizations might be better served by identifying and promoting areas of common cause between clinic and community, or between the social and psychological dimensions of gun violence.115 Connections between loaded handguns and alcohol, the mental health effects of gun violence in low-income communities, or the relationships between gun violence and family, social, or socioeconomic networks are but a few of the topics in which mental health expertise might productively join community and legislative discourses to promote more effective medical and moral arguments for sensible gun policy than currently arise among the partisan rancor.

Put another way, perhaps psychiatric expertise might be put to better use by enhancing US discourse about the complex anxieties, social and economic formations, and blind assumptions that make people fear each other in the first place. Psychiatry could help society interrogate what guns mean to everyday people, and why people feel they need guns or reject guns out of hand. By addressing gun discord as symptomatic of deeper concerns, psychiatry could, ideally, promote more meaningful public conversations on the impact of guns on civic life. And it could join with public health researchers, community activists, law enforcement officers, or business leaders to identify and address the underlying structural116 and infrastructural117 issues that foster real or imagined notions of mortal fear.

Our review also suggests that the stigma linked to guns and mental illness is complex, multifaceted, and itself politicized, in as much as the decisions about which crimes US culture diagnoses as “crazy” and which it deems “sane” are driven as much by the politics and racial anxieties of particular cultural moments as by the workings of individual disturbed brains. Beneath seemingly straightforward questions of whether particular assailants meet criteria for particular mental illnesses lay ever-changing categories of race, gender, violence, and, indeed, of diagnosis itself.

Finally, forging opinion and legislation so centrally on the psychopathologies of individual assailants makes it harder for the United States to address how mass shootings reflect group psychologies in addition to individual ones.16 Persons in the United States live in an era that has seen an unprecedented proliferation of gun rights and gun crimes, and the data we cite show that many gun victims are exposed to violence in ways that are accidental, incidental, relational, or environmental. Yet this expansion has gone hand in hand with a narrowing of the rhetoric through which US culture talks about the role of guns and shootings.118 Insanity becomes the only politically sane place to discuss gun control. Meanwhile, a host of other narratives, such as displaced male anxiety about demographic change, the mass psychology of needing so many guns in the first place, or the symptoms created by being surrounded by them, remain unspoken.

Domestic violence is often an anger issue.

Mental illness is diagnosed after acts of terrific violence.

The gun culture and anger (which is not at all the same as mental illness) are causes of a lot of the gun violence.

Still, some gun violence is due to delusion and paranoia and mental illness. It's just not nearly as big a factor as the politicians would like us to believe.

Do we characterize bullies as mentally ill?

No. They are just bullies.

And a lot of gun violence is bullying.

Was Trayvon Martin's killer mentally ill? No. He was a bully.

Same for many of the police officers who kill Black arrestees and suspects.

Just bullies. Not mentally ill at all.

hospitals were opened up and everyone thrown up, many to end up in prison.

I give Bernie the most benefit because of all of them, he will be most likely to help the mentally ill.

which I call relationship violence (an inclusive term), is primarily a power and control issue -- with an underpinning of poor self esteem. Anger is associated with relationship violence, not necessarily with regards to causality.

Maybe the reality here is the NRA is so powerful that it can cause recalls of politicians who vote for reasonable background checks (see Colorado) and cause politicians to lose elections. But the politicians also feel pressure, intense pressure, from victims. So, if you want reasonable gun controls, you have to come at it from a different angle. So mental illness is brought up.

I mean, the gun guys are just like big tobacco was. They're teflon. Nothing sticks. Columbine happens. Sandy Hook happens. You say, we need reasonable gun control. They say no we don't. You say yes we do, how about background checks? They say, well, background checks wouldn't have prevented Sandy Hook (but closing the gun show loophole would arguably have prevented Eric Harris from getting his hands on the guns he and Dylan Klebold used at Columbine). Oh, so you say, hey what about closing the gun show loophole. Well, the guy guys say, that's a slippery slope. It endangers our second amendment right...

This fight has gone on for YEARS, since Brady was shot, and the NRA has been successful so far in fighting off anything. They even used Obama's election to say, well, Obama's gonna take all your guns! Gun sales went through the roof when he was elected, as did the formation of 'militia' (hate) groups. I mean, day traders made money on gun manufacturer stocks they went up so fast.

So how do you win? Until some other stuff gets into place (like Americans waking up and learning to exercise massive civil disobedience, protest and pressure to get politicians to do the right thing, ending gerrymandering and overturning Citizens United), we're not gonna be able to touch the big swollen corporate propaganda organ that is the NRA.

That said, are you willing to sacrifice expanding social security by lifting the payroll tax cap, single payer healthcare for all Americans, free college tuition at state schools, taxing big corporations and billionaires (basically reversing the Bush tax cuts then some), and aggressively addressing climate change? Are you willing to allow one of the Republican lizards to go into the White House and set the whole nation back 50 or 100 years?

I'm not calling you out or calling for an answer or explanation. You don't owe me one - you can vote your conscience. It is a rhetorical question...I mean I think Clinton is a bit corrupt, a bit of a corporatist, a bit of a neoliberal, but I'll vote for her over Trump, or Carson, or Jeb! or Rubio or any of those GOP clowns in a heartbeat. But, I'm supporting Bernie because he's talking about what I want to see happen.

First, guns may not in themselves kill people, but the number of guns and the availability of guns is almost exactly correlated with these shootings. If there are fewer guns available to be used, there will be fewer homicides using guns. It's as simple as that. The key to cutting way down on the shootings is very simple in theory and can be reduced to ONE idea only: Reduce the number and availability of guns. People are basically the same always and in all countries. Take 100 people and there will be 10% who are unlikely to ever have a rage that results in violence, another 10% who can be classed another way, that is, the human variable is basically the same for all countries and in all places within a country. There are a few other variables like news sources and organizations in particular countries, maybe some special traits of people in certain countries (e.g., the US) that increase criminal thinking and thus probably add a little to the total gun crime, but basically, it's the guns that need to be better regulated and LIMITED. This can be done in many ways. Besides the ideas much discussed, there are many ways that guns can be better monitored: guns should be ID'd as cars are and users of guns should have to have a license to use one, just like car owners. The reason for licensing cars is to cut down on accidents and make policing easier in case of accidents. Same goes for guns. A one-day waiting period before actually being given the gun and the requirement that the buyer read a warning brochure that explains the fax about guns, i.e., that if you buy a gun the chances of the gun being used to kill somebody who is trying to kill you or rob you or seriously harm you is EXTREMELY LOW; the chances of the gun being used for suicide is very high, the chances of an accidental shooting are also high and the chances of children misusing the gun is not insignificant either. The chances that the gun will be stolen and used in a crime is also significant. All these facts should be given to the gun owner and he should be required to pass a short test related to this brochure before being allowed to take possession of the gun, a test like the test people take before receiving a driver's license. There are many other ideas that would be highly effective in reducing gun violence. For example, cities and states should be allowed to pass laws that require that a user carry his license or permit with him that shows that he is the rightful owner of the gun. Anybody who is found with a gun who doesn't have a license or who has a gun that doesn't belong to him should face severe penalties like those that drug users have long had to contend with. Minimum sentencing would be very appropriate here. Basically, it's very simple: the more guns, the more mass shootings.

Second, I think Bernie is thinking of the community clinics he was able to get included in the ACA when he suggests that treatment for mental distress or stress should be available immediately when distraught people need it. This would be difficult to set up and manage and also costly, but it's not a bad idea at all. I just don't think it's the essential thing that needs to be done. Basically, you can just about bet on it: where guns are readily available and not monitored, you will have the most killings. Where the guns are less available and well regulated, the shootings will go down. On a graph, the correlations would be almost exact I think. All the other theories and such are just fluff and more or less irrelevant, despite what the NRA and the viewers of Fox News say or think (if the actually think).

and its association with the mentally ill, Sanders, Webb, Clinton and OMalley have apparently decided to ignore the available empirical data on social gun violence and the mentally ill and just go with popular opinion on the street. That opinion equates all mass shooters with the mentally ill.

I think Sanders, and the others, have plumbed the wind with a wet finger and found a 'consensus' of what group is in need of special restriction in America. Politicians love public consensus, and recently Sanders has made public consensus a big deal...as when he talked at Liberty University.

Public consensus doesn't have to square with reality, it just needs to be the consensus position.

If the dem candidates will make such a facile move on one issue there is no reason to believe that pattern won't be repeated in other policies.

Leadership I'd vote for, is not at all about following the widest spread, lowest information, meme believed by the masses.

NONE of them "scapegoated mental illness" for gun violence. Most said that we needed instant background checks, to close the gun show loophole, Bernie said he wanted a ban on assault rifles. Most said that we also needed to help the mentally ill get treatment. As someone who has fought depression as long as I can remember, I strongly support that idea. I wish that the brain were considered as important as other organs in the body, and would be given equal consideration.

Why not bring it up under universal healthcare as a right?

O'Malley launched right into one of the most common fallacies...mass shootings being examples of common gun violence...and the gang all joined in.

I'm all for people getting care. But I'm not -at all- for national policy built on pragmatic exploitation of stigma because it is a consensus position.

I had not disliked her in any manner -- just liked Bernie better -- until last evening.

So plastic and way too practiced. Glib and mannequin-like. If she is our nominee, I will of course vote for her. But she so disappointed me. Hard cold and scripted.

JMHO

that without a habitable world all the other stuff is moot.

Their narrative of fear requires that we squirm in the face of ISIS or some other bunch of bogeymen, and the media are more than happy to keep the lower brain stem occupied with these shadows.

That truly is the greatest threat that we face. Wisdom.

Venus can't support life as we know it. The volcanoes of Venus caused its runaway greenhouse gases. We're causing ours. No difference in the end.





(edited: poor wording)

drought that they have been battling. Climate change puts every Nation and species at risk.

need to cooperate in large desalination and water purification projects.

Stop fighting about religion and start helping each other out.

Are they all co-operating with those of like faith?

They are majority Sunni Muslims.

Of the total Muslim population, 10-13% are Shia Muslims and 87-90% are Sunni Muslims. Most Shias (between 68% and 80%) live in just four countries: Iran, Pakistan, India and Iraq.

http://www.pewforum.org/2009/10/07/mapping-the-global-muslim-population/

So they may or may not be deciding who to cooperate with based on religion, but religious differences might prevent them cooperating as a region, especially if they insist on leaving out the country with very sophisticated technology on all levels, Israel.

They'd be smart to ALL work together. They would all benefit and learn from each other.

But people in general tend to prefer to be stupid and angry rather than smart and cooperative.

I think he is exactly right that climate change is our biggest national security threat. But, for those Americans who are just coming around to accepting anthropogenic climate change as a reality, and for those who just haven't been paying attention, an example or two would have helped them understand his response and the reality.

Thanks for the thread, TygrBright.

Climate change is already a major factor in world conflicts. By the time I'm an old man, the world is going to be totally different. I suspect there's a fair chance I will never be an old man, because of it.

I like O'Malley's answers on it as well, but... 2050? Ain't gonna do it, man. Wish it would, but you're looking thirty-five years from now, and just five is unnerving enough.

We are going to be facing a very hostile world full of people that blame us and our high consumption for causing the problem.

eom

are the 2 big issues. They override everything else for me. But everyone is different.

I don't believe we will get comprehensive gun confiscation in this country. It just won't happen. We can put more controls in place but that's about it. We saw how well prohibition worked here 100 years ago ...

Jim Webb sees the world through the eyes of a man acutely aware of international conflict and a military lens. It's good to remind military guys that it's okay to be a Democrat, and reassure security freaks that we have plenty of bench strength in that area.
Clinton matches a traditional politically successful strategy with experience as SofS.
Chafee recognizes the intractable horror that most of us feel when thinking about ISIS, Syria, and Iraq.
My man Bernie, the grouchy 70-something that grew out of the starryeyed idealistic 60s as a CO, is the Progressive who speaks the unvarnished truth for the new generation - climate change. Bold, brave, straight talking.

I like the range...a sane quintet last night versus the senseless cacophony of the clown car.

it's going to massively destabilize everywhere. It is far and away more dangerous than anything mentioned by any of the other candidates.

Whoever becomes president will have to deal with a number of threats, and a variety of issues. Forcing them to choose one answer trivializes the discussion and smack of some game show like "The Dating Game."

it would impact her supporters. She chose keeping the world safe from WMD getting in the wrong hands. She is right back with Bush in 2002. Her MIC supporters will love her answer.

This is just what the doctor prescribed. Exposure. So much that he picked up 1.3M in a few hours after the debate.

The revolution is on a roll now.

People are starting to notice.

I love it!!!

as a unit to make Earth a safe and beautiful place to live for generations to come.

The Future is in those two words: Climate Change

Brillant answer by Bernie.

And I make sure to point that out to deniers at work.

Great post btw