I have tried to avoid watching too much of the news this weekend. I can't express the sadness that I feel for the families and all the people in the town of Sandy Hook. I can't believe the audacity of the shooter -killing little children. This just shows that the shooter was mentally unstable.
Folks- mental illnesses and guns do not mix. We are going to have to do a better job identifying and treating people with mental illnesses. I am a teacher and I know that I frequently find out about students with mental illness quite far into the school year and I am am certain that many pass through my class room with no diagnosis.
I am the child of a parent with schizophrenia. I can tell you that if we had a gun in our home when I was a child the chances that I would be writing this today would have been slim to none. There is no stopping someone when they are off their meds and their adrenaline is pumping. My father could hardly stop her when she was attacking him. I think the weight difference was about 150 pounds. She was very scary when she was off her medicine and she hurt both my sister and I on several occasions. Today she takes her medicine and she can have some sharp-tongued verbal insults but the physical abuse has stopped.
When someone is over 18 and they have a mental illness their family can not force them to go to the doctor. They are free to be as crazy as they want to be. the treatment often makes these people very fuzzy and sleepy and they don't like this. When they start to feel better and hear less voices in their heads they tend to stop taking the medicine and that is when the trouble starts.
If the second amendment allows for you to protect your home with a weapon-why would you really need a gun that was semi-automatic? Couldn't you protect yourself with a handgun that holds 6 bullets? We have got to do a better job with gun control. Like Chris Rock says- tax the bullets. If you had to pay $2000 per bullet you wouldn't waste your money on drive by shootings. I know that humor is not what is needed right now-but he has a good point. Bullets and weapons should not be so easy to attain.
