I ran across this article in the NYT today
When the Right to Bear Arms Includes the Mentally Ill
FYQ.
Last April, workers at Middlesex Hospital in Connecticut called the police to report that a psychiatric patient named Mark Russo had threatened to shoot his mother if officers tried to take the 18 rifles and shotguns he kept at her house. Mr. Russo, who was off his medication for paranoid schizophrenia, also talked about the recent elementary school massacre in Newtown and told a nurse that he “could take a chair and kill you or bash your head in between the eyes,” court records show.
Embedded in the article is reference to a 52-page report
"Guns, Public Health and Mental Illness:An Evidence Based Approach for State Policy" containing a series of recommendations on improving state laws regarding mental health and guns. The report clearly articulates the "public health crisis" we are faced with, along with recommendations for states to enact stronger laws.
I'm not sure the evidence supports the findings but this is sure to be on future legislative agendas.
Be sure to read the last pages of the report to see who all the members of the consortium are. Also check out their website and decide for yourself,
Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence . I found it a bit difficult to rationalize the findings and the so called health crisis after reading the links provided to the NRA and statement of principals. It is the same tired emotional diatribe cloaked in an official sounding report.
~Whitney
