There are those who really want mental health screenings before anyone can buy a gun. Their reasoning, that it will stop disturbed people from buying a firearm, sounds reasonable to some until they recognize how many people think no one isn’t disturbed would ever buy a firearm in the first place. All it would take is just one such person to create a massive problem.
Especially since “mentally ill” runs an entire spectrum of things that aren’t inherently tied to homicidal or suicidal ideation.
But as John Lott and Rep. Thomas Massie note in an op-ed at The Daily Signal, even when the mental health experts are evaluating people, they get it wrong incredibly often.
A profound mental health crisis lies at the heart of violence in America.
Decarlos Brown Jr., the man who brutally stabbed to death the Ukrainian woman in Charlotte, North Carolina, was in a mental hospital earlier this year, and diagnosed with schizophrenia. But doctors wouldn’t have released him if they had viewed him as a danger to himself or others.
Similarly, the killers at Minneapolis’ Annunciation Catholic School and Nashville’s Covenant School both struggled with mental illness. Nearly all mass shooters also battled suicidal thoughts.
“We will never arrest our way out of issues such as homelessness and mental health,” Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles warned after the stabbing death. “Mental health disease is just that—a disease. It needs to be treated with the same compassion.”
After the Minneapolis attack, House Speaker Mike Johnson underscored the issue: “The problem is the human heart. It’s mental health. There are things that we can do.”
Yet, despite the fact that more than half of mass public shooters over the past 25 years were already under the care of mental health professionals, not a single one was identified as a danger to themselves or others. An entire body of academic research now explores why mental health experts so often fail to predict these attacks.
When professionals cannot identify threats before tragedy strikes, society must ask: What is the backup plan?
It’s a great question.
These are the people who are supposedly most qualified to determine who is a danger and who isn’t, yet they drop the ball all the time. These numbers don’t touch on the people they wrongly believe to be a danger, either, which comes into play in states with red flag laws, for example.
But in these cases, let’s understand that they got it wrong, and multiple people died as a result of it.
Yes, they’re human, and they’re never going to be 100 percent accurate. They might have been lied to, even to the point that they couldn’t be expected to get it right. I understand that quite well. In fact, I’m not actually blaming them for it. Psychology is a fascinating subject, but it’s also one that is fraught with problems, as the human mind is incredibly complex and poorly understood.
So what do Massie and Lott suggest as the backup plan?
Our gun rights.
They outline how DeCarlos Brown had a knife on the bus in violation of the law, while none of the law-abiding citizens were armed, making it far less likely that anyone would or could step in to help. Meanwhile, we had another knife-wielding maniac in a Michigan Walmart who ran into a Marine Corps veteran with a lawfully carried firearm, who ended his rampage without having to fire a single shot.
Guns, contrary to what some people want you to believe, save lives.
The experts miss dangerous people all the time, as we can see. Good guys with guns who are on the ground when a rampage starts? They don’t miss them, especially if they’re decent marksmen.
Editor’s Note: The mainstream media continues to lie about gun owners, self-defense, and the Second Amendment.
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