I have friends in this business and I use the services, but whenever there is another mass shooting, we go back on the stigma of mental illness.
First, replace mental illness with heart disease or cancer and see how far you get with your logic because mental illness is has a medically measurable pathology to it as assessed by health care providers. It requires treatment. It is a chronic condition.
The use of a gun as a weapon is the same for someone who has mental illness and someone who has cancer. Erroneous thoughts happen in both. Actually, how much measurement that is, I haven't seen definitive peer reviewed scientific evidence.
Then the fact that MOST people who do have mental health condition that are undergoing some kind of treatment are STILL lucid enough to determine right from wrong.
I do not believe in using a gun to solve my problems with cruel people. I'd rather stomp around angrily than to resort to gun use and violence. Nothing positive happens with a gun when people are assholes. My self-efficacy is strong enough to know, I'm not going to let some asshat get the best of me when I feel it is not worth my "lifeforce" energy. I can walk away. Pissed. But walk away. I can use mindfulness to stave my anger to move forward. It takes me awhile, but it's better off for me in the long run.
I grew up around guns, too. I've shot at ranges before. Not until I learned by vision was impaired due to a brain congenital defect did I stop practicing gun use with safety. What's the point if I can't see? And even if I could, it's still not for me.
so from my perspective, there does need gun control similar to that like a car with insurances, licenses, etc. What's wrong with that?
My friends who do know how to to use weapons well and my husband can speak more on it.
But this last guy, he made a choice. a bad choice. Which makes him have the ability to tell right from wrong. We'll never know because he's dead. But it looks like, that people who DO NOT GET MENTAL HEALTH treatment are the ones that act out. It looks like people who LAPSE in their mental health treatment act out. Not those of us who do.
