Mental Health programs should be funded by a tax on guns and ammunition

Let's face it, America has lost the war against guns (as well as drugs).

It's impossible to turn the tide on the zealous Second Amendment gun hoarding. Under the protection of this Constitutional Amendment, right wing nuts guard against enemy "windmills" they've created without cause. Nevertheless, it's time for those responsible for this over reach of Second Amendment rights to be held accountable for the damages and thousands of murders resulting from their zealotry.

Rather than face the source of the problem of gun violence, ie "guns", the Christian Science Monitor reports on how the US Congress prefers to address the problem of untreated mental illness, instead.

"Why Congress targets mental health, not gun control, after mass killings": The University of California Santa Barbara killings revived calls for more aggressive federal action on gun control. But in Congress, the emphasis is on mental-health fixes to stem violent attacks. Here's what the House is considering so far.

By Francine Kiefer, Staff writer / May 30, 2014

As mass killings such as the one in California (by Elliot Rodger) over the Memorial Day weekend mount up, the way to action in Congress is more likely to be through mental-health legislation than gun control.

The reason is simple, says Julian Zelizer, congressional historian at Princeton University in Princeton, N.J. “Mental health legislation is not blocked by a gun rights lobby.”

In the aftermath of the Isla Vista, Calif., shootings and stabbings by the deeply troubled Elliot Rodger, two draft mental-health bills are getting a fresh look in the House. On Friday, Rep. Mike Thompson (D) of California introduced a bill that marries mental health with preventing gun violence. In the Senate, meanwhile, one idea is to pull out the mental-health aspect from an expanded gun-background check bill that failed last year, and offer it as separate legislation.

For now, the action is in the House, with three bills that come at mental health and violence from different angles. These include:

Treating the severely mentally ill. Rep. Tim Murphy (R) of Pennsylvania, a clinical psychologist, has introduced a bill with a focus on people with serious mental illness. The bipartisan legislation, which has 86 cosponsors including 36 Democrats, would encourage states to revise standards to commit the severely mentally ill to hospitals – standards that would recognize need of treatment, not just imminent danger. The bill would also enable families and judges to intervene and to mandate therapy and medication, including outpatient treatment.

A broader approach. Rep. Ron Barber, a Democrat from Arizona who was injured in the 2011Tucson shooting that killed six people and injured former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D), takes a more sweeping approach. His bill would use federal dollars to improve general access to mental-health services by beefing up counseling, research, and education. “Investing in mental health services in our communities and early identification and prevention of mental illness will save both lives and money," Mr. Barber says in a statement. The bill, so far, has only Democratic sponsors.

Norman Ornstein, a political observer and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, says emotional cries are again rising to challenge the powerful gun lobby, including the 5-million-member National Rifle Association. That notwithstanding, he says, “there are plenty of members of Congress who would rather do something in mental health than on guns.” Groups that may oppose mental-health legislation have "less traction" than the gun lobby, he adds.

Clearly, gun zealots and unrelenting Second Amendment protectionists are more interested in protecting their deadly weapons of murder than in supporting the treatment of those who are a danger to themselves or others.  

In my opinion, all those involved in obstructing the protection of the public from gun violence are complicit in the mass murders of innocent victims killed as a result.

As is the case with many reparations, those responsible for the crimes should also be held accountable to atone. This should mean taxing guns and ammunition, to the extent that the money is dedicated to improve access to care, treatment and support for the mentally ill.

Americans, apparently, can't be protected against preventable gun violence. It's an incurable and untreated public health danger. Nevertheless, we're surely capable of enforcing legislation to protect the mentally ill from experiencing, like Rodger, the worst of their untreated symptoms. A dedicated assessment on guns and ammunition is surely one way to pay for the badly needed mental health programs.

Violence in America - right wing politicians are accessories to these crimes

Zealous supporters of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and right wing nuts who believe the US Constitution was written for them alone, are accessories to the growing incidence of American violence, particularly correlated to gun violence.

In my opinion, the politicians and US Supreme Court Justices who support Second Amendment rights over the safety of all Americans who are innocent victims of gun violence, are accessories to the preventable murder of thousands of innocent people every year.

Over the weekend, three innocent people in Santa Barbara, California were shot and killed by a 22 year old mentally ill man named Elliot Rodger. Additionally, he gruesomely stabbed three of his roommates before going on the shooting rampage. All of Rodger's murders were preventable, if the required mental health care he needed had been enforced. Tragically, Rodger didn't present as being a danger to himself to others. Obviously, Rodger seriously deceived evaluators.


Today, there are more reports of random gun violence murders reported in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

(CNN) -- Myrtle Beach authorities responded to six separate shootings Saturday that left three people dead and five people wounded in the popular South Carolina resort city, police Capt. David Knipes said Sunday.

The deadly incident occurred at the beachfront Bermuda Sands motel, where three men were killed and one person was wounded. Knipes said no one has been arrested.

A witness told CNN affiliate WPDE that one of the victims ran after the shooting but eventually collapsed.

"It was like to the point where he had a lot of blood everywhere and he was just trying to breathe" and he died, Jamont Samuel told the station.

At the time of the shooting, people lined the sidewalks of Ocean Boulevard, which was jammed with Memorial Day vacationers and people who came to the area for Atlantic Beach BikeFest.

"I was scared to death. I just took off and started running. I was scared," Debra Lovack told WPDE.

In one of the other nearby incidents, a woman was shot in the chin and a man in the shoulder. There were four other shootings where two people were wounded, police said.

Knipes said police don't believe the shootings are connected.

Shooting rampage in California kills 6

On several US Supreme Court rulings, the justices could have supported regulations to enforce the control of human killing guns. Nevertheless, a majority on the court chose, instead, to support unbridled Second Amendment rights, rather than rule to protect the public from preventable deaths by gun violence.  

Elliot Rodger experienced mental illness, but those who treated him did not, apparently, enforce his compliance with treatment goals. Was he too affluent to challenge his spoiled noncompliance? Perhaps, a mentally ill person must be poor before law enforcement and medical care givers can identify them as being a danger to themselves or others.

Meanwhile, right wing politicians and their constituents continue to be accessories to the crimes perpetrated by deranged people, who are intent on killing innocent victims with guns, because they can.

Worse, no one is leading efforts to end the growth of preventable grief. Rather, politicians are paralyzed by threats to their lives and the National Rifle Association to protect people from public health harm from guns.  

I call on the US Supreme Court to end this insanity by supporting laws to protect people before Second Amendment rights.