Can you name me one single compromise any gun aficionado has suggested in this thread, Wolverine86?
@wolverine86, I haven’t really weighed in much on this thread. However, I’m puzzled that you haven’t noticed the nastiness, name calling, etc., that has been in evidence from those taking the opposing point of view from those whom you are wagging your finger at. Because it’s been here in abundance. Is civility only required of those who have an opposite point of view?
There was a poster multiple pages back who suggested tying two emotional constitutional issues (gun control and abortion) together to get something accomplished on both fronts. Sounded like a pretty darn good idea to me, but of course their suggestion was completely glossed over by the righteous rantings on both sides.
Offer some legislation that institutes nationwide enhanced background checks in exchange for a federal ban on late term abortions. It’s a step in the right direction for one side of each argument and a compromise from the other side. That’s the kind of legislation I could get behind.
Doesn’t that assume that pro gun rights people are united against abortion? Because they aren’t.
@Nrdsb4 … Counting the one reference on this page, I’ve now seen the term “hoplophobe”…one time. 
There’s been plenty of incivility on both sides, as there is in every single thread here on CC that involves a hot-button issue. I don’t excuse it from either side, but I lost count of the number of “gun nut” references and snarky mockings of responsible gun owners…as if they don’t somehow exist. It’s tiresome…but I guess that’s just the burden of my “insanity” that I’ll have to bear. I certainly don’t expect anything else to change here on CC anytime soon. :-??
@Nrdsb4 … You’re not going to find ANY issue in this country where everyone on one side of Issue A is on the opposite side of Issue B, but since nearly everyone on this thread (and elsewhere) wants to “cleanly” define both issues in partisan terms it seemed like a reasonable things to suggest. The centrist view of most of these issues, which I believe is probably the majority of people in this country, would view such legislation positively IMO.
Others may disagree…shockingly enough.
And for gun rights activists who talk about mental health, what are your actual mental health proposals that would enable people with mental disorders to be better treated and/or to be prevented from having access to guns? How are these proposals different from what we have now?
CF … Interesting question, and here’s a possible improvement I heard a few weeks back. What if all the federal funding that currently goes to Planned Parenthood were diverted to the treatment of mental health issues? The reasoning that was used was that after ACA, all the services which Planned Parenthood provides (with the exception of abortion) is now provided via ACA healthcare plans. If PP truly doesn’t use federal funds to pay for abortions, than whatever source of funds they currently draw upon to provide them should be unaffected. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but it’s quite possible that ACA has made PP redundant.
Better mental health care requires more expenditures on our mental health system. And I think the pro-2nd amendment crowd isn’t big on paying taxes – it is a smokescreen for them to talk about it, because they have no intention of voting for anyone who would fund it.
PP’s services are something like 97% related to women’s health in areas other than abortion. So let’s cut spending on women’s health for this? How about instead we tax the bejesus out of guns and ammunition, as the gun owners are crowing about mental health issues as the causes of gun deaths? That seems to have a much closer connection to the problem of shooting deaths – there is no link to the abortion debate, you are just trying to distract again.
^Good thing we’re trying to avoid sweeping generalizations along partisan lines.
@intparent … And which of those 97% of the services is not covered by ACA? Since everyone is now required to have health care plans, and health care plans cover most if not all of those items, why exactly should that funding go towards duplicated health care?
I’m not distracting anything. CF asked a question and I provided a possible solution. You instantly start pounding the “war on women” drum when it may be a case of duplication of effort where the funding could be better utilized.
Put your personal opinions aside for once and consider whether it might actually be a viable solution.
Why is this consistently tied to the mental health sector? The vast majority of mentally ill people aren’t the problem. It’s a very small subset who do the shooting.
@JustOneDad … I think it’s because this thread was initially intended to discuss mass shootings, the vast majority of which are perpetrated by individuals with known mental health issues. In terms of general gun control issues, I believe it was the connection to mental health related suicides by gun.
Interesting ruling in case of penske truck shooting assailant, found incompetent to stand trial, and the decision not to require him to take medication http://www.northwestgeorgianews.com/rome/news/local/ga-high-court-overturns-forced-medication-of-alleged-penske-truck/article_f02b6fec-7661-11e5-80ca-afd621ae029d.html?mode=jqm
And where do you think women get their ACA health services? For low income women, those ACA plans are Medicaid. Many low income women get their Medicaid reproductive health care at Planned Parenthood clinics. The government reimburses Planned Parenthood, as it reimburses other health care providers. About half of Planned Parenthood’s clients are Medicaid recipients.
So defunding Planned Parenthood is going to save money just to the extent Planned Parenthood’s low-income clients skip their reproductive health care instead of going to a different Medicaid provider. But we don’t want those women to skip getting contraceptives and end up with unwanted pregnancies. We don’t want them to have their STDs go untreated. Not paying Planned Parenthood to provide reproductive health care doesn’t mean the health care stops being necessary, and it doesn’t mean the health care stops costing money to provide.
Also, government funding for Planned Parenthood (federal, state and local) is about $500 million a year. Half a billion. That sounds like a ton of money, but in the context of mental health care, it’s not. Medicaid spends about $120/person on mental health care-- that’s $120 averaged over every man, woman and child-- which is about $40 BILLION a year, and that is not close to all federal, state and local spending on mental health. Half a billion is a mere drop in the bucket.
Mental health care is staggeringly expensive. Stealing away some poor women’s health care isn’t going to make a dent.
If you think we should be spending more money on mental health care for young men who are socially isolated-- well, so do I. I’ve got a son with a mental health disorder. But historically, the people who support gun rights don’t support big new government health programs.
First, if one is opposed to abortion, one doesn’t need to have one. Guns, on the other hand randomly kill people, people who are for gun control and people who are against gun control. None of us have any control over not becoming the victim of gun violence except dumb luck. I may be affected by someone wielding a gun, you will not be affected by my decision to have an abortion. That does not harm you or your children in any way.
ACA doesn’t cover many low income people who live in states which didn’t expand Medicaid and those are the states which are trying to close PP clinics and whose reps want to defund PP - so no ACA doesn’t solve the problem of replacing women’s health care for many low income women.
Just because you have never heard the term hoplophobe before does not mean it is not used to describe those of us who advocate for gun control legislation.
CF … I’m just curious though, why is it that low income women have to go to PP for these services? If Medicaid is their ACA plan, they must have a health care provider that accepts Medicaid for their non reproductive health issues? Is there some reason they can’t use that provider for reproductive needs as well?
I never implied that this could be a complete fix for the mental health issues in this country, just a possible source of funding as a partial solution. There are plenty of programs/departments that funding could be diverted from to help defray some additional costs as well, and each side of the aisle would have differing opinions on which sources they would cherry pick.
For those advocating increased taxation as a funding source…why is it that you feel gun owners should bear the burden of that tax? As @JustOneDad posted above, gun issues and mental health issues only overlap in a very small area. Why not increase taxes on alcohol, cigarettes, or other items which are large healthcare issues themselves?
Hmmm . . . which states did not opt into the expanded medicaid? The same ones that are passing laws to limit planned parenthood. Louisiana, for example, is leading the race to the bottom in guns and women’s health care access.
Because other alternatives don’t exist or don’t have the capacity.
For young women, usually reproductive issues are the only issues they need health care for. She needs her pills, implant or IUD, and she needs her pap smear, and if she gets pregnant she needs prenatal care, but for a lot of young women, that’s it.
Do you mean, increased taxation to cover mental health services? Has anyone in this thread said that gun owners should pay for mental health care? I say, gun owners should accept liability for the damage their guns cause, but mental health is a community issue, not a guns issue.
Too much access to one and too little to the other . . .