Tell It To Tim's Blog

Tim,

If your wife was treated for post-partum depression six years ago, it's not anyone's business except hers. Not her employer's. Not her neighbor's. And certainly not Fred the Gun Dealer's who sells at the county gun shows.

I agree with Kay. We have a neighbor that lives behind us and we found out that he is bi-polar,how we found it ? He was in the back yard screaming at my hubby here in the house one day,just out of the blue. Hubby went out to see what the deal was and the guy starts yelling all kinds of obscenities about me (I had never met the guy).Any ways long story short- when the police arrived the guy was in his living room w/a gun in his mouth ready to shoot!They took him in for awhile and told us that he had several guns in the house and for us to be careful.He was off his meds and boozing it up.We have guns also but holy macanoli...when theres guys like that out there that can have them..thats scary.

I agree there are certainly different 'levels' of mental illness, but it's impractical to think the state can "label" people. (extreme cases, probably, but the Virginia Tech guy would have passed because he wasn't treated, right?) There's also the issue of privacy, and with HIPPA laws, that won't change any time soon.

Besides (said the devil's advocate), you could also say a diabetic who accidentally took too much insulin is a danger to you family. What if a driver in the next lane had these symptoms: Fast breathing, fast pulse, dizziness, weakness, change in the level of consciousness, vision difficulties, sweating, headache, numb hands or feet?

Better put a big red flag on their car.

Well unfortunately I have had to deal with my husbands brother who was mentally ill, paranoid schizophrenic with pryomaniac tendacies. The mental health system protects these people, there is little anyone can do to keep them locked up in an institution or off the streets. It was very frustrating as a family when we would get late night telephone calls of something he had done, the first thing people would say "why hasn't his family done something about it"... the truth is, you can't. It doesn't surprise me that they are not in the gun system, my brother in law had a gun which made him twice as dangerous. No matter what he did (which included arson, theft of a new vehicle, breaking & entering) he was let go because of his illness. I believe in a patience privacy to a point, but when you have a person, such as my brother in law who is a danger to society, his condition needs to be disclosed.

Well look at the mental cases writing the laws
'nuff said

It might surprise all of you just how many Police Officers, Firefighters, Medics, and even Doctors are on anti-drepressants. It is a larger percent than you can imagine.

Todays high stress jobs can really take a toll on mental health. Just make sure that the agency or law makers declaring people mentally incompetent to own guns, are capable of knowing the difference between a person with a little depressive disorder and a full fledged schizophrenic suicidal maniac.

The severity of a persons mental health is very difficult determine and to measure. So becareful what you ask for Tim. You might be on happy meds one day, just to deal with those gory news reports one day.

I think I'm having a mood swing myself right now, just thinking about all this. :)

Yeah that is ridiculous, that important information should be shared with the FBI and come up in the system and to prevent or make it hard for them to purchase weapons. And what happened at Virginia Tech should of never happened, there were signs that teachers did not pick up on or act on. 2 or some odd hours later he then strikes again, which therefore is the fault of VT campus security. Why whould you not put the campus on lockdown?