Using an already compromised minority population (those with mental illness) as the scapegoat to implement draconian measures to achieve expanded governmental infrastructure (technology, staffing, funding, authority) to control who gets guns, especially through the exploitation of the records of those who seek mental healthcare is what I see in Obama's vile mental illness proposals of 1/5/2016.
Obama shifts the focus of gun control to suicide control: Tears aside, not even Democrats have previously proposed suicide control as gun control: "We will keep guns out of the hands of criminals and terrorists," http://www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/Democratic_Party_Gun_Control.htm.
TARGETING THE MENTALLY ILL AS A JUSTIFICATION FOR NEW FEDERAL GOVERNMENT GUN CONTROL INFRASTRUCTURE: We know that most reasonable people don't consider the gun violence issue an issue of suicide but rather that of violence against others with firearms since "…less than 5 percent of gun homicides between 2001 and 2010 were committed by people with diagnoses of mental illness," ["Don’t Blame Mental Illness for Gun Violence," 12/15/2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/16/opinion/dont-blame-mental-illness-for-gun-violence.html?_r=0"].
Therefore, in order to target those with mental illness and justify his actions the President had to change the issue and the facts about suicide.
Obama's Statistical Insanity: Not only don't those with mental illness commit 95 percent of gun violence, but because the suicide mental health issue is about prevention of suicide and firearms are one mechanism for committing suicide the statistics presume mental illness in every suicide by firearm stating:
For suicide "…more than 90 percent have a DIAGNOSABLE mental disorder. People who die by suicide are frequently experiencing UNDIAGNOSED, UNDERTREATED, or UNTREATED depression," http://depts.washington.edu/mhreport/facts_suicide.php (emphasis added). Those who haven't gotten care, the UNDIAGNOSED, UNDERTREATED, OR UNTREATED but diagnosable if they had sought such healthcare represent the greatest risk of suicide by firearms--A group that would be UNTOUCHED by Obama's proposals.
In fact the issue of the majority of those in need of mental health services NOT getting them is catastrophic in terms of challenges of mental illness with the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) stating that "Only 41% of adults in the U.S. with a mental health condition received mental health services in the past year," https://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Mental-Health-By-the-Numbers#sthash.WIp0JbS5.dpuf.
This feature of suicide in terms of the tremendous number of undiagnosed, untreated and undertreated makes Obama's proposal even more cruel as a suicide control because it will further discourage those with mental illness from seeking help since they risk losing their right to bear arms forever.
FOR OBAMA GUN CONTROL FANS, it's obvious that if you have joined Obama in his fantasy logic and therefore in his brutality-unreality of targeting those with mental illness as a means of further nationalizing gun control then you're likely among the 1 in 5 in the US who have mental illness (https://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Mental-Health-By-the-Numbers), and therefore, I fully support you seeking help so that your mental healthcare provider can report you to the federal government (with the removal of barriers that prevented such reporting in the first place including updated technology and liability-free avenues for mental health provider informants) so that information can be used to remove your right to bear arms forever (no duration included on removal of second amendment rights included) as means of gun control through suicide prevention.
SUICIDE IS NOT THE ISSUE FOR OBAMA, JUST A MEANS OF GETTING WHAT HE WANTS:
Obama and the "truth": "…the truth is, is that nearly two in three gun deaths are from suicides," Obama, 1/5/2016. Yep, that number is floating around--Most people who succeed at suicide use firearms but violence on others from gun violence 95 percent of the time is NOT from those who have mental illness and every suicide by firearms is assumed to be due to mental illness.
The rest of the NAMI tweet Obama cites says: "The presence of poorly secured firearms in American homes offers too much of a risk for those in despair." This doesn't identify whether those suicide deaths are from guns owned by them or others, legally obtained guns or illegally obtained guns and ignores the truth:
THE RISK FACTORS FOR SUICIDE there are 15: MAJOR DEPRESSION AND BIPOLAR ARE THE GREATEST SUICIDE RISK FACTORS, AND SUBSTANCE ABUSE IS SECOND: "Substance abuse is the second most common risk factor for suicide after major depression and bipolar disorder," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide, "[t]he most critical risk factors for suicide are prior suicide attempts, mood disorders (such as depression), alcohol and drug use, and access to lethal means," http://www.samhsa.gov/suicide-prevention.
LETHAL MEANS INCLUDE FIREARMS, SUFFOCATION AND POISONING AND SUFFOCATION IS RISING THE FASTEST: According to the CDC firearms are the leading mechanism of suicides followed by SUFFOCATION (including hanging) and POISONING (including overdose) and "…the age-adjusted rate of suicide deaths by suffocation increased by nearly 70% from 1.9 per 100,000 in 1999 to 3.2 in 2013. In contrast, the suicide rates by firearm, poisoning, and other mechanisms remained relatively constant," (http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6403a10.htm)
Based on "THE TRUTH," the President's desire to control suicide would best be focused on targeting suffocation based on the CDC's stats from 1999 to 2013, or focusing on alcohol and substance abuse availability based on that risk factor. After all, "One-third of people who killed themselves in 2009 had alcohol in their systems, according to the CDC. About a fifth (20.8 percent) tested positive for opiates…" http://www.livescience.com/44615-suicide-help.html, "Suicide: Statistics, Warning Signs and Prevention," Stephanie Pappas, Live Science Contributor, March 16, 2015.
By Choosing access to lethal means, one part of 1 of 15 Risk Factors described by the CDC, OBAMA will make mental illness issues worse in this country in order to achieve his GUN CONTROL through SUICIDE CONTROL:
Access to lethal methods which include firearms, poisoning and suffocation, (suffocation is on the upsurge, 70 percent increase 1999-2013, while firearms deaths are stable, (see CDC cite above) is 1 of 15 RISK FACTORS the CDC lays out http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/suicide/riskprotectivefactors.html.
By ignoring the other 14 RISK FACTORS Obama increases the likelihood of other risk factors occurring with his disgraceful scape-goating of those with mental illness and proposal to invade mental health medical records so that the federal government can use them to deny second amendment rights.
For instance, "Unwillingness to seek help because of the stigma attached to mental health and substance abuse disorders or to suicidal thoughts," IS A RISK FACTOR OF SUICIDE. If we follow Obama, creating the risk of losing second amendment rights if your healthcare provider "reports" you it will only discourage the 41 percent of us that get the mental healthcare we need from getting it and therefore the proposal becomes a BARRIER TO ACCESSING MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT, another risk factor, increasing the chances that people with mental illness will self-medicate using alcohol or other substances, another risk factor, (http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/suicide/riskprotectivefactors.html).
If Obama cared about suicide he would not worsen existing risk factors in an effort to address one part of a single risk factor, access to lethal means.
Confiscation of Second Amendment Rights and Firearms NOT Part of CDC Protective Factors:
The government also lists PROTECTIVE FACTORS, good things that help prevent suicide, including effective clinical care (discouraged by Obama's proposal for mental health providers who report to the federal government for purposes of keeping firearms out of the hands of those with mental illness), support from ongoing medical and mental health care relationships (discouraged since RELATIONSHIP is not helped knowing there is no privacy and that the individual is reporting to the feds on you).
There is NO mention of gun confiscation by the CDC as a protective factor, nor is there mention of substance confiscation, or confiscation of anything that can be used as a suffocation mechanism.
MENTAL HEALTH PARITY UNDONE: Obama managed to slip in a plug about Obamacare's mental health parity that provides for health insurance to cover mental health treatment at reimbursement rates similar to medical treatment rates in an off-topic attempt to distract away from the grotesque stigmatizing of mental illness his proposal includes.
Gun control through suicide control through reporting of mental health status to feds, through denial of gun rights to those with mental illness, through expanded federal government power over guns will negate any help the financial mental health parity laws created by seriously jeopardizing any chance that those with mental health needs will get mental health treatment (meaning that the 59 percent untreated according to NAMI will go up, so reimbursement rates don't matter).
We also know that the President is not that up-to-date on what Obamacare's actually resulting in rather than in what he smugly thinks it should be doing: "A growing number of mental health-care providers are filling their practices with easy-to-treat, cash-paying patients — and leaving the desperately ill with few options," "How Psychiatrists Are Failing the Patients Who Need Them Most," Shannon Pettypiece, BloombergBusiness, 4/10/2015, "Obamacare was supposed to help level the playing field by requiring individual and small-employer insurance plans to include mental health benefits. Yet because of the low reimbursement rate paid by many of those plans, few doctors will take them, and those who do have long waits."
We also know that financial reimbursement parity does not replace the need to de-stigmatize mental illness and therefore singling out mental illness as a justification to deny firearms because of the risk of suicide ignoring that PHYSICAL ILLNESS is also a risk factor in suicide (http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/suicide/riskprotectivefactors.html) treats those with mental illness differently and worse than those with physical illness. That's not parity, it's prejudice and stigmatization.
The Government is Largely Ignoring the CDC's Risk Factors for Suicide: We know that the government IGNORES suicide RISK FACTORS like the PHYSICAL ILLNESS, a RISK FACTOR FOR SUICIDE when it's convenient, like if it will save government money. Consider the government PAYING Medicare physicians to provide end-of-life counseling about whether their odds for recovery are worth the expense of treatment (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 10/30/2015, Stephanie Armour, "End-of-Life Discussions Will Be Reimbursed by Medicare").
We also know that when it comes to giving federal money, Obamacare gives money to institutions that provide assisted suicide services and in section 1553 merely prohibits funding discrimination against institutions that DON'T provide such assisted suicide options (Obamacare, section 1553, http://www.hhs.gov/civil-rights/for-individuals/refusal-provide-assisted-suicide-services/index.html).
Stick to What he Said not to what you think he said: There's a temptation to do what we did with Obamacare and ADD or SUBTRACT from the irrational language of the President in order to make the unpalatable palatable. But laws don't work that way and intent isn't expressed that way.
What I said above is based on the President's actual proposals: "…we're going to do more to help those suffering from mental illness get the help that they need… a lot of our work is to prevent people from hurting themselves… It’s [also] why we’re going to ensure that federal mental health records are submitted to the background check system, and remove barriers that prevent states from reporting relevant information," Obama, 1/5/2016.
Under Obama's proposal you'd have to be "crazy" to seek mental health care if you had "mental illness" knowing that the proposal not only groups all mental illness as a single category but that your doctor-patient privacy is gone and that the federal government would have your records to use to deny your second amendment rights permanently.
Note, Obama lumped together all mental illness. According to his words, those with any mental illness, ranging from individuals with ADHD, eating disorders, anxiety, depression, to those with PTSD, could have their mental healthcare reported and their gun rights withheld or revoked.
THERE IS NO DURATION PROVIDED FOR IN BAN OF GUNS FOR THOSE WITH MENTAL ILLNESS: Whether someone suffers from an episode of situational depression or whether someone was diagnosed with ADHD as a child, or whether someone is effectively being treated and is as mentally well as someone else, Obama's proposal includes no end of the duration to how long the ban on second amendment rights will be.
Somebody's Guns and Some Confiscation:
"…this is not a plot to take away everybody’s guns," (Obama, 1/5/2016) but somebody's guns? "This hasn’t been the first step in some slippery slope to mass confiscation," but incremental confiscation? (Obama, 1/5/2016).
The proposal can't work without a confiscation provision because remember it's gun control through suicide control through increased reporting on people's mental health to be used to prevent those with any of the broad category of mental illnesses from obtaining firearms. If those individuals already have firearms there would have to be a mechanism of confiscation (not mass confiscating just incremental confiscation) of some individuals' guns.
Who knows what that trigger would be, a retroactive record of mental illness, an episode of mental illness, an ongoing treatment for a previously diagnosed mental illness, only those who decide to obtain mental health services for the first time after the law?
VETERANS BEWARE: One group should be particularly alert and that's veterans because they have firearms, many of them have been diagnosed with PTSD and are collecting disability checks based on that mental illness classification while retaining their firearms AND they have a higher suicide rate than the rest of the population.
The veteran population has a 50 percent higher suicide rate among their population than their civilian counterparts ("Detailed study confirms high suicide rate among recent veterans," Alan Zarembo, 1/14/2015, LA TIMES, http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-veteran-suicide-20150115-story.html,") and since most often suicide is accomplished with firearms, as Obama stressed, "…two in three gun deaths are from suicide," vets with PTSD would be ineligible for second amendment rights under Obama's proposal unless he started creating exceptions that would create even more targeted discrimination against civilians with mental illness.
Say, "No to GUN CONTROL THROUGH SUICIDE CONTROL," it's based in falsehood and it's a marginalizing effort at exploitation of those with mental illness. It would make more sense to include a mental health screening as a requirement for gun licenses and permits rather than penalizing all those with mental illness at the expense of their privacy and right to bear arms simply because they dared to try to get help for a mental health issue.
