We have a gun problem because we have a mental health problem.

[Gregorian]

And we have a mental (and physical) health problems because WE SPEND HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS ON WAR EVERY YEAR.

How about instead of Mil-Spec weapons, we use that money for Mil-Spec health care.



AND, let's refine our definition of "healthy". Instead of just some general physical every year, how about lowering the definition of what is unhealthy. In other words, let's be more sensitive to the needs of humans rather than the fear and greed which we pay for in military spending.

And I do think it's fair to mix military spending into this discussion. After all, every day you work, you spend about an hour just for them. That's how much of your tax dollar goes for killing instead of fixing people.

[Uncle Joe]

1. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Gregorian.

[Gregorian]

3. Yay. It's nice to feel some love.

In all of my years on DU I haven't really posted more than about once per year. But I've been pretty verbose in the last day or so.

I just want to see this conversation heading toward the target, and not just the symptoms.

[rDigital]

2. I agree 100%. We need to take those trillions and help our mentally ill brothers & sisters.

Our wars produce endless carnage and loss of loved ones. Let's lead by example, no more wars of aggression, slash the defense budget in half and use that half toward Mental Health Care for all.

We also need tougher laws to commit adults who are mentally ill and dangerous to society. With a very robust appeals process & due process of course.

[Angry Dragon]

4. This country has a killing problem because we have a hate problem in this country

The hate starts with politicians and some churches

[leftstreet]

5. Violent crime in the US is at its lowest in decades n/t

[femrap]

6. In Criminal

Justice classes, one learns how the FBI, Police forces, etc. scramble the statistics.

So I'd take those numbers as spewed by the MSM with lots of salt!

[leftstreet]

9. Nonsense

Law enforcement would be motivated to increa$e the statistics

[femrap]

10. Maybe you

should go back to school and study Stats....and then study Criminal Justice and how they manipulate them.

Why would a city want to have MORE murders??? It's not good for biz.

I give up....it's too difficult to deal in facts here. Go away.

[Gregorian]

8. The hate starts in the family. But those seeking money, power, etc., are emotionally crippled.

I was just looking at the guns per capita of countries around the world. We have 88 per 100. Japan has 0.6 per 100. Just a side note.

And even if I've already posted it in this thread, Germany passed legislation to make it a crime to use corporal punishment against a child. And this is where it is all beginning.

Our definition of healthy is what is the problem. It's no different than the DMV. The drivers on the roads of this country are absolutely crap. But I digress at the risk of losing anyone reading this. Does someone have to be foaming at the mouth in order to be classified as disturbed? Hell, half of Congress, or more, is mentally unstable. Emotionally damaged. If we had an emotional minimum standard, Bush would have never been in the White House, and America would still be solvent, and a million Iraqis would still be alive.

[jeff47]

7. Mil-Spec health care isn't very good.

Especially when it comes to mental health care.

[Separation]

11. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

As a person who has had to battle the system for 14 years for my son. It's scary, I go to work and when my phone rings I wonder what has happened. Did my son hurt another child, did somebody hurt him because he is differant? It's a battle that I will fight with my dying breath.

[meow2u3]

12. We have a gun problem because we have a PROPAGANDA problem

Mental health has less to do with the gun problem than the endless, relentless propaganda from the gun industry, which plays on paranoid, imaginary fears of a tyrannical government which exists only in the warped, twisted minds of the racist, sexist, and classist anti-government, 2nd Amendment extremists.