theberettaman said:
Uuuh yes they are Tom Cruise
Okay, let's debate that issue.
How many times have you heard a leftist make the comment, "There's something wrong with a guy who owns that many guns"? If you offer rebuttal, they claim you are paranoid. If you counter that you're a realist, they offer the remise that they have never been mugged.
The entire discourse "proves" to them that there are a lot of weirdos out there hiding behind The Second Amendment.
Same thing here. The moment the media and the conspiracy boys find out that a criminal once used (or in this case, stopped using) drugs, they linchpin the crime to the illness.
And for all we know the shooter was mad over getting a bad taco.
You mention Tom Cruise, and that's a good example. Lots of Americans read a scare story in The Readers Digest and now claim to know all there is to know about mental illness, the treatments and the side effects.
The problem is that you never mention the times where illness is not a factor.
Perhaps you are too young to remember the "cocaine cowboys" in Florida during the early 1980's. "Miami Vice" is loosely based on those criminals. They would spray an entire shopping mall with automatic fire to kill one man.
Now, you would also assume that I know a lot about mental illness since I am in those ranks. I don't. I do know that diagnosis and treatment are a delicate balancing act of cognitive therapy, meds, lifestyle changes and routine monitoring.
But here's the kicker. I needed vice-grip monitoring during the last episode, and I mean almost
daily evaluation. I had about five or six drug changes and resulting "ramp ups," and one horrible spate of anxiety where I felt it was the end--and I mean chained up at a facility.
However, I now go in for evaluation
once per year. I'm the same guy.
I don't look at this issue as you do. The fall-out, and I mean the real damaging fall-out, relating to firearms, personal freedoms and restricting enumerated rights is going to be considered with debates
including Dr. Phil, Tom Cruise, Oprah and hobbyist forums.
In other words,
the guys who know the least.
Is that what you want? You want to go into your doctor (seemingly in confidence), find out that the fistula in your colon is also present in 60% of the chronic schizophrenics, and oh by the way, you've just lost your gun rights.
We don't know what meds and stimuli do to individual patients. But whatever the cause and effect, if won't be found by a hunter in a gun forum.
Patients are shooters, but not all shooters are patients, or criminals.