Why People with Psychiatric History should not be allowed to Own Guns

On December 14th, 2012 in Newtown, Connecticut, Adam Lanza shot and killed twenty children, six staff members, and his own mother; this occurred because Adam Lanza was a man with a psychiatric illness with possession of many guns. If Adam Lanza did not have possession of this gun, twenty seven lives could have been saved. There are criminal background checks that take place in order to own a gun, however the government is missing one crucial aspect to it, and that is the medical background check. Even though there are laws against people with mental illnesses having guns, but the government has no way of checking if they have an illness because they do not conduct medical background checks to do so. Mass shootings by people with mental illness are a growing reoccurrence in the United States that needs to be prevented in order to save the lives of American citizens. People with psychiatric history should not be allowed to own guns because there is an increased risk of violence, people with psychiatric illness are not mentally stable, and the United States does not do proper screening and background checks for gun permits.

A mental illness is a medical condition that affects a person’s mood, thinking, feeling, and decision making that is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. There are many different types of mental illnesses, but the two that are correlated with violence the most are Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder. Schizophrenia is a mental illness that causes a person to not think clearly, to hear voices, not to relay emotions to certain events, and they cannot decipher whether they are in reality or not. Bipolar Disorder is a mental illness that causes a person to have severe mood swings from extremely depressed to a s...

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... the chemicals in their brain are being manipulated from the illness. Since the chemicals in their brain are being constantly manipulated, they are never in their right mind. People who are not mentally stable are unable to make the correct decisions because of the chemical imbalance in their brain; this is why guns need to stay out of the hands of the mentally ill. The government needs to take the initiative and put into law that when a person is trying to acquire a gun, the applicant needs to go through a criminal background check and a medical background check as well. People with mental illnesses should not have possession of guns because there is an increased risk of violence, people with mental illnesses are not mentally stable, and the United States Government does not do the correct screening and background checks that are needed in order to own a gun.