<p><img src="http://thefreethoughtproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/authority-696x366.jpg"/></p>
<p>&nbsp;In the growing debate surrounding the natural right to self-defense, &nbsp;one of the most popular proposed methods of gun control has been &nbsp;restrictions on gun-ownership for those who are deemed to be mentally &nbsp;ill. This is a measure that is often suggested by liberals and &nbsp;conservatives alike, but it is important to stop and consider what &nbsp;something like this might entail.&nbsp;</p>
<p>When any collective group is banned from owning a gun, they are &nbsp;effectively turned into second-class citizens. In the case of mental &nbsp;illness, that classification is so vague and open to interpretation that &nbsp;it could possibly be applied to over half of the population, depending &nbsp;on which criteria you use.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Mental illness can be very hard to identify since there is no kind of &nbsp;official test for most conditions, most people are diagnosed according &nbsp;to the subjective opinions of the doctors that observe them. Even the &nbsp;most severe conditions, like schizophrenia, can be very difficult to &nbsp;identify and is often misdiagnosed. Psychiatric drugs are another possible factor that could get someone &nbsp;marked by the government as mentally unstable, but a classification like &nbsp;this would allow for large portions of the US population to be &nbsp;disarmed.&nbsp;</p>
<p>According to a <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/psychiatric-drugs-study-reveals-widespread-use-women-men/">2016 study</a> &nbsp;by JAMA Internal Medicine, more than 1 in 6 Americans are on some type &nbsp;of psychiatric drug. This is not to mention the large number of people &nbsp;who report symptoms of depression or anxiety and don’t take medication.&nbsp;</p>
<p>A policy like this could also allow the government to disarm &nbsp;dissidents and political enemies. As psychiatry became more influential &nbsp;towards the middle of the 20th century, rulers around the world began &nbsp;using “mental illness” as an excuse to lock away anyone who might &nbsp;disagree with them.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The Soviet regime became notorious for this practice &nbsp;by labeling all political dissidents as “mentally ill” so they could be &nbsp;locked away in institutions where they were no threat to the &nbsp;establishment. The United States government also has a long history of slapping &nbsp;unruly citizens with the mark of mental illness. President Franklin &nbsp;Roosevelt famously called his detractors “the lunatic fringe,” and this &nbsp;type of attitude towards activists has carried on in the halls of &nbsp;government to this day.&nbsp;</p>
<p>In the dictionary of mental illnesses, known as DSM-5, published by &nbsp;the American Psychiatric Association, there is actually a condition &nbsp;listed for people who have a problem with authority. <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/oppositional-defiant-disorder">Oppositional Defiant Disorder</a> is a name that psychiatrists made up to identify children who won’t do what they are told, and now even <a href="https://www.reference.com/health/oppositional-defiant-disorder-adults-27e31d1384536c38">adults</a> are being diagnosed with this condition as well.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Meanwhile, politicians and mainstream media are quick to label anyone &nbsp;who questions the official narrative as a “conspiracy theorist,” a term &nbsp;that has been falsely associated with mental illness in pop culture.&nbsp;</p>
<p><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ejsp.2331">A study in 2017</a> &nbsp;set out to determine whether or not believing in conspiracy theories &nbsp;was a form of mental illness. As expected they found the exact answer &nbsp;that they were looking for, people who don’t trust the government and &nbsp;mainstream media are crazy, and suffering from something called <em>illusory pattern perception</em>.&nbsp;</p>
<p>There is another dilemma that arises in the discussion of disarming &nbsp;people who are accused of having a mental illness, and that is the fact &nbsp;mentally ill people are <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/health-17182626">10 times more likely</a> to be victims of violence than the rest of society because they are often seen as easy targets.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Complicating matters further is the fact that these people can’t &nbsp;depend on the police to help them in these situations, as studies have &nbsp;shown that the mentally ill are <a href="http://thefreethoughtproject.com/shock-report-mentally-ill-1600-higher-chance-killed-police/">16 times more likely</a> to be killed by a police officer than the average person. According to the Virginia-based Treatment Advocacy Center, a minimum &nbsp;of 1 in 4 fatal police encounters ends the life of an individual with &nbsp;severe mental illness.&nbsp;</p>
<p>To prevent mentally ill people from owning firearms is a severe form &nbsp;of “ableist” discrimination, and also opens the door for nearly anyone &nbsp;to be classified as mentally ill. There are sometimes extreme cases where a person’s mental instability &nbsp;is creating a dangerous situation for the community, like the recent &nbsp;Parkland shooting, for example.&nbsp;</p>
<p>In this case, the shooter had a known &nbsp;history of violence, regularly made threats and was visited by police on &nbsp;numerous occasions because of his threatening behavior. In cases like &nbsp;this, it is reasonable to keep an eye on someone, restrict their access &nbsp;to firearms, or possibly quarantine them from society in the most &nbsp;extreme situations. There are many laws on the books currently would have allowed the FBI &nbsp;or local police to intervene in their initial encounters with the &nbsp;shooter, but they decided that a student known for violent outbursts and &nbsp;talking about carrying out school shootings was not worth looking into.&nbsp;</p>
<p>As TFTP <a href="http://thefreethoughtproject.com/seattle-cops-begin-nazi-style-gun-confiscations-no-laws-broken-no-warrant-no-charges/">reported earlier this month</a>, &nbsp;there is a law on the books known as the&nbsp;Extreme Risk Protection Order &nbsp;or ERPO, which went into effect in June of 2017. This law is used when a &nbsp;person is considered an “extreme” threat as reported by police and &nbsp;family members. An ERPO&nbsp;must be approved by a judge and only after this &nbsp;person is proven to be a danger to themselves or others can police move &nbsp;in to confiscate their weapons.&nbsp;</p>
<p>These types of targeted approaches specifically aimed at individuals &nbsp;who are a known source of violence in the community would do far more to &nbsp;prevent tragedies from happening, than a wide-reaching law that could &nbsp;threaten the rights and safety of millions of innocent gun owners.&nbsp;</p>
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I wrote this story @ http://thefreethoughtproject.com/discriminating-against-the-mentally-ill-with-gun-control-laws-is-a-bad-idea/
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY:
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<p>My name is John Vibes and I am an author and researcher who organizes a number of large events including the Free Your Mind Conference. I write for numerous alternative media websites, including The Free Thought Project @tftproject and The Mind Unleashed. In addition to my first book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Alchemy-Timeless-Renaissance-John-Vibes/dp/1518828612">Alchemy of the Timeless Renaissance</a>, I have also co-authored three books with Derrick Broze @dbroze : <a href="http://theconsciousresistance.com/reflections-on-anarchy-and-spirituality/"><em>The Conscious Resistance: Reflections on Anarchy and Spirituality</em></a>, <a href="http://theconsciousresistance.com/finding-freedom-age-confusion/"><em>Finding Freedom in an Age of Confusion</em></a> and <a href="http://theconsciousresistance.com/manifesto-of-the-free-humans/"><em>Manifesto of the Free Humans</em></a></p>
<p>I just won a 3-year-long battle with cancer, and will be working to help others through my experience, if you wish to contribute to my medical bills, consider subscribing to my <a href="https://www.patreon.com/Johnvibes">podcast on Patreon.&nbsp;</a></p>