This blaming those of us mentally ill for your fucking gun problems is getting tiresome.

[zabet]

16. Having a mental illness

does not necessarily mean the person cannot be trusted with a gun. Now mind you, I am only speaking from personal experience: my late husband (passed 18 months ago), suffered from paranoid schizophenia. We were together for 27 years so I went through onset to full blown episodes with him. We lived on a 40 acre farm he was born and raised on, my husband grew up hunting and loved it. We always ate what was killed. When he first starting having outbursts, I purchased a huge floor safe and put all of our firearms in it and only I had/have the combination. Now believe it or not, to me, securing the guns did not make me feel any better. Husband was 6'7" and 235 as opposed to my 5'4" and 120lbs. His size and reach and strength alone were enough to wreak major mayhem if things went that way. As time went on, with therapy and medicine regimen, we managed to get the illness under control. After much discussion with his Dr and therapist, he was allowed to use the shotgun to hunt on the farm. I still kept it in the safe and he only got it when he was leaving to walk to his stand, and as soon as he came back, it went back in the safe. This may sound as if I was treating him like a child but I feel like it gave him something back that he enjoyed, something from before his mind betrayed him (that's how he described it), it reminded him of his youth, etc. He put a lot of meat on our table and I could see the pride in being able to provide.
Not all mentally ill people should be allowed access to guns at any time but, then again, not all sane people should be allowed access to guns at any time either.