Are there legitimate reasons for gun control and ending the import or export of non-hunting guns? Watch video first please.

In a way, this is sort of an issue of who a responsible health care worker reports to, maybe. But I can tell you from personal experience that the system is completely broken in this. I work with homeless veterans, and the VA psychiatrists will FINALLY examine them, and I say it that way because sometimes it can take them 3 years to deliver a diagnosis on a person who is living in a shelter, clearly not coping well, has signs of hypervigilance (always on the alert) and not sleeping. They just keep changing their meds. I had this happen once, so it is a fresh memory. They then diagnose the person as "a danger to himself and others" and give him the 3 years back pay, some more medications and release him to continued monthly care, at will. Meaning, expecting him to show up for the monthly appointments. While meanwhile, I pray every day for the nice woman he sees on the bus when he goes to the VA who always has her head covered, because he thinks she looks like those "Women over there who hated us and wanted to kill us, like the Army taught us. Maybe I should just kill her one day, because I'm sure she is dangerous!" (his words). I didn't have enough time to work with him before he was gone, and not he has 3 years pay, and that.

That is the reality of what I see. So unless we change that system, it would not have mattered who she told, but I can understand why she might have tried for the campus police, because they are probably less jaded about their efforts in this situation, because city police, at least big city police sometimes have tried to get something done, only to be thwarted by the mental health system. So why bother. Unless an examining psychiatrist deems them a danger to self or others at the time of the arrest, they cannot be held. Not a psychologist (deals with mind and cognition/thinking), because they cannot have a person committed without the cooperation of a psychiatrist (deals with chemical imbalances and is an MD), at least not in Georgia. And if a psychiatrist believes the patient is controlled by drugs, they may not deem them a danger, so as not to infringe upon their rights. But that doesn't mean that a "crazy person" is going to take their drugs.

So when I see people on here talking about no guns to crazy people, it seems as naive' as I seem to them when I talk about gun control actually. There is not much public understanding of how the mental health system works, so quite literally, there can be, in a public setting of 200 people, 15 or 20 who fall into this crack. If you think that restricting firearms is a violation of rights, restricting a person based on perceived mental health in the future, surely is.

So given that, it is actually easier to deal with firearm control, than the mental health system to me, because at least the guns can't walk around and fool you into believing something other than what you see! Being funny. I don't know the solution, but I know that most Americans don't have a good understanding of mental health in this country at all, and thus these are really simplistic solutions that don't make sense at all, when only the guns are considered, and the right to bear arms. It is not matched with the reality of the situation because almost everyone who is "crazy" doesn't match some criteria that allows them to be recognized. So "deeming" someone crazy, is a misnomer.

I'm not so sure that so many fewer people are being affected in this mental health thing. The suicide rates for returning veterans is one a day on average. The PTSD rates are off the charts, and that is for those diagnosed with it. There are many, many more who have not been diagnosed. With veterans, which I know more about, they are well trained and hanging by a thread. When you add in the women vets and the rape rate within that community, it becomes past embarrassing as a country. I work with Vietnam Vets who have not slept more than 2 hours in 40 years! They are hanging be a thread every day, and more importantly, they are trained killers!

When you add that to the effects of dye in the food, contaminants in the environment, effects of constant electronic waves on the brain, bad food with high fructose corn syrup in it which has profound health effects on human beings http://www.youtube.com/watch?... and the mounting evidence that sugar, affects decision making processes, as do food additives and chemicals, mental health is actually not more easily controlled than guns. Guns are a much, much smaller problems. We are creating a society of hair-trigger people through the bad environment, food and air.

So stress increases depression, http://www.youtube.com/watch?... and you add all of this together on a daily basis, to people without jobs, failed lives, divorces, and on and on, and you can expect that this increase in mass murders, snapping, and madness to increase.

So then if there is no serious, HUGE public outcry to fix this, and people don't study this, understand this, and work to address all of this, do you really want more guns in circulation? Does it actually make sense to put more of them in the hands of a nation of people who are steadily, daily, losing their minds basically? That is the real question.

People throw out the line "everyone should have guns except for crazy people and criminals" without understanding what they are actually saying I think. The release of people in the 70s was only a part of this. The allowance of genetically engineered food, and garbarge and chemicals in the food is creating a nation of "crazy people" no pun intended. It is real.

One thing or the other has to happen. Stop the madness, or make it too hard to get guns for the increasing, soon to be high % of the population that has some form of depression or mental illness in this country. These things do not stand alone, but instead, are connected, hence the recent rash of madness. Often, mention of clinical depression goes with the news report of how they killed a bunch a folks! That is what has to be considered in connection with this discussion, not apart from it.

Article: http://www.mentalhealthameric...

Depression is a chronic illness that exacts a significant toll on America's health and productivity. It affects more than 21 million American children and adults annually and is the leading cause of disability in the United States for individuals ages 15 to 44.

Lost productive time among U.S. workers due to depression is estimated to be in excess of $31 billion per year. Depression frequently co-occurs with a variety of medical illnesses such as heart disease, cancer, and chronic pain and is associated with poorer health status and prognosis. It is also the principal cause of the 30,000 suicides in the U.S. each year. In 2004, suicide was the 11th leading cause of death in the United States, third among individuals 15-24.

Despite significant gains in the availability of effective depression treatment over the past decade, the level of unmet need for treatment remains high. On average, people living with depression go for nearly a decade before receiving treatment, and less than one-third of people who seek help receive minimally adequate care.

"Ranking the States: An Analysis of Depression Across the States" was researched and written by Mental Health America and Thomson Healthcare. It looks at data from 2002-2006 and was conducted from July to November 2007. The report compares depression levels and suicide rates in all 50 states and the District of Columbia and uses the information to highlight solutions to improve states' mental health status.

Mental Health America has two goals for the report: (1) spur the development of a public health surveillance system to monitor the mental health of Americans and the specific impact of depression, and (2) to stimulate action by communities, public health professionals, federal and state policy makers, and others to address depression in their populations.