>The avenues this could open up for oppression from corporations and/or the government sends a shiver down my spine.
Tons of vets already avoid mental health services because it's a black mark on their career and can hinder their ability to bear arms in civilian life.
It’s a huge problem in the firearms community - most of us are scared to seek even minimal mental health assistance because of the stigma associated with it.
I faced my own issues with depression in my late teens and early twenties. Gun rights are very important to me, and I was extremely hesitant to speak to any mental health professional due to the potential future restrictions it might place on me. I did see someone, and over the course of a few years recovered to the point that I was able to get my life back on track - but even then, it was difficult to find a therapist that wouldn’t immediately demand that I dispose of all of my firearms. I ended up asking around and basically “interviewing” several providers before I chose one. I wasn’t suicidal and didn’t have anything resembling an urge to harm myself or others, for what it’s worth.
I still believe that seeking help may come back to haunt me one day. It’s something I’ve come to terms with and I believe I made the right decision, but I think my ability to introspect and make a rational decision in the face of my illness is... atypical.
I think it’s a consequence of the “do you have firearms in your home” questions during routine checkups. The current push for so-called “red flag” laws seems to validate the concern.
Ditto for the UK. Police will revoke firearms licenses if a holder has mental health issues, and GPs have a duty to inform the police [1]. Typically a UK firearms license will only allow the holder to use a shotgun on their own land if they are a farmer, or a rifle on a certified shooting ground if the holder is a sports shooter. Some, including a friend of mine, have self certifying licenses that allow them to shoot anywhere they deem fit. Such licenses are granted to eg pest controllers who may be called in by landowners who need vermin eliminated. My friend typically drives around with his Blaser hunting rifle with telescopic sight, silencer and a box of ammo. He suffers from depression but has never sought treatment as he'd immediately lose his license.
NB many think firearms are illegal in the UK. They are not! I was surprised to discover this when I moved out of London to the countryside 10 years ago. It's very difficult to get a firearms license in an urban location. But rifles and shotguns are commonplace in rural areas. Handguns have been banned since the Dunblane massacre, and semi automatics since Hungerford. But in rural areas few dispute that shotguns and rifles are legitimate tools.
In Northern Ireland handguns are still legal but you can only have a license if the police service here deems that owning one is reasonable for the protection of your life. [0]
On the other hand, in the US it happens that a disaffected fellow has a dissociative episode and shoots up his former workplace or school. It's a culture-bound syndrome. You need to defend society against it.
When you taught at college and had to deal with a deranged individual who eventually got himself expelled for stalking and attempted rape your opinion about gun rights changes.
Here's my own anecdotal story; note that it's third hand, I wasn't directly involved, so people should take it as such.
Around the corner from my house one early morning (around 3am?) erupted a 4-alarm fire at a neighbor's home. Several fire trucks, etc later, the fire fighters tried to enter the structure when they were shot at by someone inside. They retreated and the police (SWAT) were called.
They entered the home with the fire fighters; the person inside attempted to fire again, and was shot and killed. The fire was put out, and while I never learned all the details in the aftermath, I learned enough to know something very terrible had happened.
The person that SWAT had shot and killed was the adult son of the family who lived at the home. The parents had kept numerous firearms in the house, and the son had only been living there for a few months before this incident occurred. Prior to that, he'd be virtually homeless, struggling with bipolarism and schizophrenic issues.
These mental health issues were known to the parents and family; they had originally kicked him out of the home years prior, but let him back in trying to get him better help or something like that. But they kept their weapons in the house; at one point, IIRC, they also bought him his own weapon for his birthday.
Apparently there was some kind of an argument, based on what immediate neighbors had heard earlier in the night, but they thought things had calmed down. Unfortunately for the family, they had only started. Sometime during the night, for reasons unknown, their son decided to take one of the family's or his own weapon, shot the mother and father, then his sister, and the family dog, then set fire to the house and waited in his bedroom.
The entire family - including the dog - dead inside a few hours.
It's not known (that I really know of) if the son's mental health issues played any role in the shooting deaths of his family, but they certainly can't be discounted. It's not certain that had there not been guns in the home, if the results would be different, but I tend to think fewer deaths would have occurred.
Note - I'm liberal in my views and political leanings, I also support gun rights as well. But I think that a discussion on how to temper these rights with keeping such weapons out of the hands of potentially dangerous people needs to be had. I don't know what a good solution would be in such cases. There are many issues intertwined, that we have let become a morass in our society, which may make the issue nearly impossible to untangle.
It's the issues and problems we have surrounding mental health, and healthcare/coverage in general, the stigmas and such.
It's issues surrounding guns, our culture of violence, the rights of individuals, etc.
It's our society's tendency to seek to place blame elsewhere, and not take responsibility for our problems (we claim "self-sufficiency!" as "being American" - but forgetting the other side of that coin is also personal responsibility).
It's our weird obsession with violence; how as a culture we've deemed it more fit for people to consume as media and knowledge - almost elevating it as something aspirational, especially when it comes to the military.
Simultaneously, we've deemed sexual knowledge and media to be something shameful - at least on the one hand; yet on the very other, such knowledge and media is blatantly used to sell products - so there's this mixed message "violence ok, sex is bad, but if you want to buy something - here's sex to sell it".
Our media, our politicians, and increasingly each of us - have fostered and promote an "us vs them" dichotomy amongst the population.
All of these things - and many more - are all tangled up. They are all problems we need to solve, but like a box of Christmas lights or a bowl of spaghetti, they are hopelessly tangled up, and one can't be sorted and fixed without causing problems with others, or requiring others to be fixed before or simultaneously. All the while, our attention is being demanded here, there, and elsewhere, and we never actually get any of it solved.
This of course benefits a few at the expense of the masses, but the masses have either tuned out, been satiated with some pablum (GoT, anyone?), or both - while a smaller minority "fights" among each other for control, both with agendas they believe will fix everything, when the fact is, they won't fix anything - and likely will make it worse. Or at least, that's what they say about the other side.
Meanwhile - the benefactors in all of this - they just smirk, laugh, smile, prod - and continue on, not caring about the chaos they help to create, promote, and endure.
It's a very unstable situation here in America. Eventually, something will give, and when it does, what happens next won't be pretty at all.
In your story, the closest supervising authority (the parents) had an extreme capabilities of surveillance, attention, and control. They were painfully aware of the details of their son's mental problems, and were applying themselves to helping him. At any point, they could have done some of { get rid of their own guns, seriously lock their guns up, not give their son a firearm, insist on fully supervising his possession/use of the gift firearm, search his belongings for any other weapons }. None of this would have required following a legal process - no crafting laws, respecting rights, nor due process in carrying them out.
And yet they still were unable to prevent this tragedy. The main thing I take away is the ultimate futility of believing that top-down control can prevent tragedies if only it is given more power!
> Our media, our politicians, and increasingly each of us - have fostered and promote an "us vs them" dichotomy amongst the population.
I'm right there with you in seeing this dynamic as ultimately one of decay. In fact I think second amendment culture functions more as a crutch that enables totalitarianism. It fosters a fallacious belief that the fight for freedom is some eventual violent confrontation rather than insidious gradual creeping.
But I maintain the burden of reform is on the government - its institutions, politicians, and the media - as it is the government which is the overwhelming aggressor. An individual that eg fantasizes about defending their family from an overzealous cop isn't actually harming anyone. And tax protesters eventually get the rats on their face.
But once bureaucrats become accustomed to entrenched authority, they succumb to fallacious thinking that they are in charge, rather than servant facilitators. Even little things like all these various "user fees" need to be fully repudiated, as they are ultimately symptoms of government agencies leveraging their power-held-in-trust to generate more revenue for themselves - ultimately that same basic "go ahead and stop us" adversarial dynamic.
> while a smaller minority "fights" among each other for control, both with agendas they believe will fix everything, when the fact is, they won't fix anything - and likely will make it worse. Or at least, that's what they say about the other side.
I'm here with you as well, but I think the statement fully applies to the gun "issue" as well.
The main profiteers of mass shootings are "news" channels, and yet they continue to blamelessly fan the flames. One specific type of weapon being a little harder to get isn't going to reduce the appeal of getting on the prime time scoreboard. But it's a simplistic divisive bikeshed narrative, right up there with how other people pee, so it get focused on.
I'd call the ultimate topic that of societal mental health, from being continually bombarded by bad news. We're getting much safer, yet "so many bad things are happening". It's true we're more connected, but that is only one part of it. Most people aren't actively seeking out tragedies to bathe in the emotion of, but rather are having tragedies pushed at them because the induced panic drives their continued attention.
I don't have an answer to this, besides hoping it's merely a phase that we'll pass out of as people get numb to and check out of mass media (including mass social media). But I'll note that an assumption that a perspective is only worthwhile if it implies a straightforward answer is essentially just another way of looking at our current problems.
I can't go to therapy because of exactly this kind of thing. I have two different fully covering insurances ... plenty of cash... and probably some reallylifetime bothersome things that I would love to deal with...but I've never been able to get past the idea that I can't just go in and talk to a professional without them having to know everything and share and store everything about me I'll never do it.
Do it anyway. Do it even if it scares the shit out if you. Say to yourself: I'm not going to let an insurance company tell me what I can or can't do. I'm telling you man, therapy is fucking great!
Edit: btw, talking to strangers on the internet is a little like therapy. It's easier sometimes to talk about yourself when it's to someone you don't know.
Agree with all points made. I inch closer to just doing it. Especially as I'm getting older - 10 years ago i had 'figure it out' runway. Feels less so now.
Last issue is anxious of sitting in session after session trying to a)settle on a particular person b)tracking/having any sense of real progress.
*mainly it's all creative avoidance out of fear, I guess..
Good point re strangers on the internet. I hardly bring this up anywhere, especially not online - not sure what happened this am.
I hear you. This was an obstacle for me for many years. I even had a hard time opening up to those I am closest too. All I can share is my own experience but I finally tried therapy, and gave it the best effort I could, 3 years ago. It has truly changed my life. I am still working on things but my life, relationships, and mind have never been better.
Your comment is so insensitive, it is ultimately just flame bait. Do you go around castigating people for being hesitant to talk to cops, as well?
It's fine that you trust the (de facto) government. And I'm certainly not going to convince you otherwise right here. But don't casually brush off the opinions of those of us who don't.
The effective requirement to expose your permanent identity as a condition of receiving medical care is an ongoing travesty. It also is a large component of how the healthcare market is so fucked, in that it fosters extreme price discrimination.
Aviators and others who need to hold a medical to drive trucks, trains, or control air traffic also have incentives to not visit mental health or other healthcare professionals as we have to itemize all healthcare visits since our last medical (or for the last few years at least) at our medical exam that represents our continued ability to fly/work.
Tons of vets already avoid mental health services because it's a black mark on their career and can hinder their ability to bear arms in civilian life.