In the wake of the recent shooting at Fort Hood, the debate of gun control rages on. Last year the Obama administration proposed new gun regulations that includes a mental health check. I understand that people have concerns about severely disturbed people getting their hands on guns and potentially causing tragedies, but overreach as a reaction to such concerns is a tragedy in it’s own right, and violation of our freedom as guaranteed under the second amendment. It also raises sticky questions about doctor/patient privelige. You have to wonder if people are going to be discouraged from seeking needed help if they know that the record of that assistance is going to be used to hound them for the rest of their lives. Shouldn’t it remain the responsibility of the doctor to report if someone is a threat to themselves or others, and not the government sneaking around seizing records and issuing faceless rulings from their armchairs in DC?

Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, has recommended adding involuntary outpatient commitment to the list of conditions disqualifying individuals from buying or possessing firearms. However, an article from Richard A. Friedman, claims:

“One of the largest studies, the National Institute of Mental Health’s Epidemiologic Catchment Area study, which followed nearly 18,000 subjects, found that the lifetime prevalence of violence among people with serious mental illness — like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder — was 16 percent, compared with 7 percent among people without any mental disorder. Anxiety disorders, in contrast, do not seem to increase the risk at all.Alcohol and drug abuse are far more likely to result in violent behavior than mental illness by itself. In the National Institute of Mental Health’s E.C.A. study, for example, people with no mental disorder who abused alcohol or drugs were nearly seven times as likely as those without substance abuse to commit violent acts. But mass killings are very rare events,and because people with mental illness contribute so little to overall violence, these measures would have little impact on everyday firearm-related killings. Consider that between 2001 and 2010, there were nearly 120,000 gun-related homicides, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Few were perpetrated by people with mental illness.







So now who gets to decide that you are mentally unstable? More importantly, how unstable do you have to be? Can you carry an M-16 in Afghanistan, but not own a 9 millimeter in your own home? One can protect a nation but not your front yard for fear of becoming unhinged. If they have been convicted in a court and sentenced, then like any other criminal they lose that freedom. I don’t think anyone would disagree with that. But what about people who have had eating disorders? What about recovering alcoholics? Are they, too, to be deemed unfit? Where do we draw the line? Who draws the line?

The establishment wants you to blame some of these horrible shootings on PTSD. It may be, but how can they get help if they are listed on some database that labels them as ‘crazy’. These kinds of impersonal databases are considered to be dangerous in almost every other area of life in America by both sides of the debate. So why should it be totally fine in gun control? Whatever the cause, for someone to use their rights to commit murder is horrible. I don’t want to marginalize that. But we all know that most criminals get their guns illegally, as part of their criminal activity, not as part of some exercise of their rights.

The part I want you to take away from this is, who gets to decide our basic freedoms. I thought that was decided by our forefathers many years ago. And just because it’s now labelled PTSD or bi-polar or anything else Congress or Obamacare wants to call it doesn’t make it new. People have had these kinds of problems since there have been people. And since there have been guns.

If you misuse your freedoms then you lose them. But men and women risk, and sometimes lose, their lives in defense of those freedoms. Will we deny those same warriors their right to bear arms because of some label? I’m a wife and a mother, and a veteran as well. I share the same fears as anyone with a family. My daughter’s school was on lockdown just last week for a suspected weapon on the property. So yes, I know the fears. And like you I can imagine an emotionally disturbed person and think “I don’t want that guy walking around armed.” But we have to ask ourselves two things: First, do we want people being labeled unfit for life because of something that has happened to them, maybe a long time ago? And second, regardless of how you feel about mental illness, do you really want the OBAMA ADMINISTRATION making the rules about who is and is not mentally stable? For guns or anything else you can possibly think of, my answer is hell no.