Byron Quick
Staff In Memoriam
Go to http://deseretnews.com/dn
There is a poll on (surprise!) if you think there should be more gun control in the wake of the Utah shootings by a mentally ill man.
We're comfortably ahead at present but let's swamp them with these damn polls.
The following is a email I sent to the editor of Deseret News:
Sir,
There are over 20,000 laws regulating the purchase and ownership of firearms legislated by federal, state, and local governments. The concept that more gun control laws will somehow "fix" the problem of access by the mentally ill is ludicrous. It is already a federal felony for someone who has been diagnosed with mental illness to purchase a firearm and has been so for decades.
I am a registered nurse with specialties in psychiatric nursing and emergency nursing. I have worked in a community mental health center that was attacked by one of our schizophrenic patients who like the man in Utah had ceased taking his medicine. Non-compliance with their prescribed medication is a common problem with many schizophrenics. However, there are long acting injections available for people with this behaviour pattern. Often, when non-compliant schizophrenics are prescribed these long acting medications they then begin to miss the scheduled appointments. Perhaps, a better solution to this very real problem is legislation that requires schizophrenics to be placed on long acting medicines at the first signs of medication non-compliance and also requires the authorities to locate them when they miss scheduled appointments.
This would certainly be a better solution than more "gun-control" laws that further violate the constitutional rights of all Americans. On a purely pragmatic note, if 20,000 laws have not solved the problem then 20,000 plus 1 will not. Perhaps the people using this issue do not want to solve the problem of violence perpetrated by the mentally ill. Perhaps they prefer to cynically use this tragic event to further their true agenda: denying the 2nd Amendment to every American except, of course, themselves and others of their elitist ilk.
Sincerely,
Byron Quick
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
-- William Pitt 1783, speech to the House of Commons
There is a poll on (surprise!) if you think there should be more gun control in the wake of the Utah shootings by a mentally ill man.
We're comfortably ahead at present but let's swamp them with these damn polls.
The following is a email I sent to the editor of Deseret News:
Sir,
There are over 20,000 laws regulating the purchase and ownership of firearms legislated by federal, state, and local governments. The concept that more gun control laws will somehow "fix" the problem of access by the mentally ill is ludicrous. It is already a federal felony for someone who has been diagnosed with mental illness to purchase a firearm and has been so for decades.
I am a registered nurse with specialties in psychiatric nursing and emergency nursing. I have worked in a community mental health center that was attacked by one of our schizophrenic patients who like the man in Utah had ceased taking his medicine. Non-compliance with their prescribed medication is a common problem with many schizophrenics. However, there are long acting injections available for people with this behaviour pattern. Often, when non-compliant schizophrenics are prescribed these long acting medications they then begin to miss the scheduled appointments. Perhaps, a better solution to this very real problem is legislation that requires schizophrenics to be placed on long acting medicines at the first signs of medication non-compliance and also requires the authorities to locate them when they miss scheduled appointments.
This would certainly be a better solution than more "gun-control" laws that further violate the constitutional rights of all Americans. On a purely pragmatic note, if 20,000 laws have not solved the problem then 20,000 plus 1 will not. Perhaps the people using this issue do not want to solve the problem of violence perpetrated by the mentally ill. Perhaps they prefer to cynically use this tragic event to further their true agenda: denying the 2nd Amendment to every American except, of course, themselves and others of their elitist ilk.
Sincerely,
Byron Quick
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
-- William Pitt 1783, speech to the House of Commons
