Mental Illness and the Gun Question

To those whose only solution to school shootings is to prevent the mentally ill from getting guns:

Let's forget for a moment that we often don't find a shooter is "Mentally ill" until they've killed 15 people.

Let's forget that the mentally ill can get guns from other people if they want them.

The fact is, you want me to be a second-class citizen.
You see, I'm mentally ill. I have bipolar 2, which means sometimes I'm a bit hypomanic (even with my meds) and sometimes I'm very depressed. I am the person you picture when you think of the mentally ill, even though if you met me on the street you wouldn't know.

How would you make me a second-class citizen?

Think about how the government could keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. A voluntary admission that one was mentally ill? How could that be enforced? Some people will lie. Some people don't know they're mentally ill. Some people believe that their mental health status is not the business of the government, and they are correct. According to HIPPA (the health insurance patient protection act), the government is not allowed private health information except for research, with the patient's name kept seperate for confidentiality. This information would also be accessible to gun shops, whose owners have no interest in keeping private health information private.

This has nothing to do with gun ownership and everything to do with violating the rights of the mentally ill.

Let's go one step further, because we know people could lie on that form. Let's make mental health status mandatory reporting, such that doctors have to report their mentally ill patients for a national registry. The very nature of a mandatory national registry should evoke the specter of other groups who have been singled out and registered -- such as Jewish individuals in Germany in WW2.

As for detection and treatment -- in the country as it is now, there is a shortage of treatment for the severely mentally ill and those without health insurance. Recent budget cuts by Trump have decimated what had been available. The current state of mental health treatment -- inpatient and outpatient -- ranges from excellent and expensive to frighteningly lackadaisical.

And what if the person doesn't believe they're mentally ill? If school shooters are mentally ill, why don't we make outreach available to those people who show clearly identified warning signs -- white supremacists, domestic abusers, heavily armed teens -- before they strike?

Because it's easy to stigmatize the mentally ill. Everyone else is doing it.