Dear NY Times Editor,
Regading your story "Some With Histories of Mental Illness Petition to Get Their Gun Rights Back" by Michael Luo on July 2, 2011, what has been happening with this situation as reported upon is simply making an insane and dangerous situation even worse.
Regarding Mr. French who retrieved his guns after a brief hearing before a judge, his story is shocking: “The judge didn’t ask me a whole lot,” said Mr. French, now 62. “He just said: ‘How was I doing? Was I taking my medicine like I was supposed to?’ I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ ” It is the psychiatric drugs themselves which create both suicidal and homicidal ideation to begin with.
As for the myriad of mythical diagnoses of the like-minded diabolically insane psychiatrists who are making a fortune due to the chaotic state of affairs of mental health care in the country and a clearing lack of
proper understanding of the issues involved by many of the judges, there are actually no biological markers for any of these diagnoses which may therefore not even exist. And the psychiatric drugs,
including the neuroleptics and lithium, mimic the mental illnesses they are supposed to be treating and worse.
The matter of gun safety should be dealt with in a responsible manner by the criminal justice system. Either the person who wants and/or has guns has criminal intent or not. And the person who wants and/or has guns has either used guns for criminal activities or has not. There is no room for the consistently faulty and dangerous conclusions of the psychiatrists, who are actually all quacks, when it comes to dealing with this sensitive issue.
I now fear the nation will pay a horrible price for this mess when someone whose gun rights have been restored because that person is on psychiatric drugs goes out on a shooting spree and kills some school kids or even takes a shot at the President of the United States himself.
This situation and a lack of a proper understanding of the real issues involved by the psychiatrists and judges themselves is simply a dangerous disgrace. Victims of American psychiatry can not even petition the courts to get their jobs reinstated as long as they live their lives in a naturally healthy manner and yet they can do so to get the right to carry guns restored as long as they are on drugs which may turn them into murderers!
Sincerely,
Harold Mandel, MD
