|
Until such time as mental illnesses are definitively diagnosable with a blood test or similar metric I am very skeptical about using this as a screening for eligibility for owning a firearm. I have a relative who as a child was diagnosed as bi-polar, only later to be changed to ADHD, then to ODD. One psychiatrist labeled him a sociopath, another said he just was as adolescent making some bad decisions. The bottom line is that mental health professionals are not dealing in hard science, have widely differing ideas on treatment, and are not very effective in doing much to change anything. I know how the leaders in the former Soviet Union used "mental illness" as an excuse to incarcerate their political enemies. Allowing too much mental health jargon into the gun rights discussion opens us up to those on the anti-gun side who truly believe that anyone who enjoys shooting a gun, who collects guns, and probably anyone who participates in a gun based internet forum, is by definition mentally ill. Lets focus on behavior, not the smoke and mirrors of "mental health".
|