Monday, October 20, 2014

Mental health, guns, and violence


A headline in the Toledo Blade read 'Mental Issues Put 34,500 on New York No-Guns List'.  That's apparently the (current) number of people deemed too 'disturbed', mentally speaking, to be trusted to own or have access to a firearm in New York state.

An e-mail today put that in perspective:

"...what's to stop any of them from getting an axe, a car, or a dollar's worth of gasoline?"

My correspondent had a point. It's as if the powers that be breathe a sigh of relief when they stop a 'disturbed' person from (legally) obtaining a firearm. They ignore the reality that getting one's hands on a gun illegally isn't particularly difficult (like this convicted felon did, for example); or, if one doesn't want to go to that trouble, there are any number of other potentially lethal instruments and methods open to abuse.  Follow the links in the cited passage above to see how much carnage three 'disturbed' people caused with nary a gun in sight.

Laws won't make us safe, because lawbreakers will (by definition) not obey them.  That's the way it is.  That's the way it's always been.  If we rely on laws (or the police) to keep us safe, we're living in cloud cuckoo land.  Given their current ill-advised mishmash of gun control efforts, the authorities in New York state seem to have taken up residence there for the duration . . .

Peter

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah about those waiting periods and their effectiveness.

What if you ALREADY own a gun ? Already quite a few in circulation you know.

Guns cause violence. I doubt it. There are dozens (if not hundreds) of gun shows every year. Thousands of people attend them. There are hundreds of thousands of firearms there, not locked up or kept away from public but right THERE, ready to be lifted up and examined. Hi capacity magazines - right there. And millions of rounds of ammunition. Again - right there.

Dozens of shows, thousands of individuals, hundreds of thousands of firearms, millions of rounds of ammunition.

If firearms cause violence, wouldn't this be the perfect place for this to occur? Look at the numbers. So how many murders occur at gun shows ? Hmmm ?

Anonymous said...

Of the 34,500, how many are elected officials?

My SWAG is 55% but I might be a bit low.

Gerry

bruce said...

odd, isn't it, you can't shut down air travel for health reasons because people will go around known procedures. ie, take a roundabout route to get to the USA instead of giving up if there is no commercial flights. People without a gun though will abide the law.