Thread by @DJSchuette

@Mikel_Jollett I’m going to share a brief thread with you that will lay bare both the “mental illness,” and “it’s not the gun” arguments. It’s gonna get a touch personal, so bear with me.

I have a mental illness. I have both depression and anxiety and have been on SSRIs for a long time.

@Mikel_Jollett I’m also a gun owner. I have a Glock 17, securely tucked away in a gun safe. I could never conceive of using it to take a life except in the defense of my life or my family’s. There’s something beyond mental illness that causes people to kill.

@Mikel_Jollett Maybe it’s lack of impulse control. Maybe it’s sociopathy or psychopathy. Maybe it’s barely controlled rage. It doesn’t matter. Mental illness alone isn’t what makes a killer. If it were, the bullets would never stop flying. There are millions of us.

But here’s the kicker...

@Mikel_Jollett That G17 in the safe? I don’t have the combo. Only my wife does. Not because I’d ever use it against anyone else, but because I’m self aware enough to know that were I to have a REALLY bad day, I could conceivably use it to take my own life. It’s not likely, but it’s possible.

@Mikel_Jollett But, there are a hundred ways I could take my life in the house. Pills, blades, CO, the bathtub... Yet the only thing that I lock safely away is my gun. Why? Because it is the easiest way. It is effective, efficient, quick, painless (if I do it right), and largely foolproof.

@Mikel_Jollett It is the only thing in the house that is expressly designed to kill. I lock it away for all the same reasons that these young men are using it to shoot up and terrorize schools across the country. Because it’s the most effective method available.

@Mikel_Jollett So, yes, it most certainly IS about the gun. Sure, if someone REALLY wants to kill you, they could use just about anything, just as I could to kill myself on a bad day. But I wouldn’t, because it’s just not as damned convenient. Too many things can go wrong. Not so with a gun.

@Mikel_Jollett I should add, I’m not suicidal or anything, so no one needs to freak out—my mental health is under control. I’m obviously using an abundance of caution. But it should make clear that mental illness has little to do with the gun violence in this country.

@Mikel_Jollett And to say that it’s a mental illness problem does nothing but further stigmatize those with mental illnesses. The vast majority of us will never commit a crime of any kind or raise a hand to anyone. So you’re villainizing millions of people to create a convenient scapegoat.

@Mikel_Jollett All to avoid talking about the REAL issue here—the guns.

So yeah, it would be great if you could stop, because you’re just hurting people with mental health issues when there’s little to no actual established causality.

Thanks.

End thread.

@Mikel_Jollett Some have asked for this:

threadreaderapp.com/thread/9658186…