By Dr David Laing Dawson
We don’t really need another voice lecturing American politicians “It’s the guns, stupid.” But I can add a perspective to this issue:
For many years I have had a large caseload of troubled teenage boys. And always, always, on any given week at least one is exhibiting an obsession with weapons, and two others are espousing a code of honour and demanding they be respected, and justifying violence as a legitimate response to grievance, and at least three are behaving in a manner that would quash the love of anyone but their mother.
Can you imagine, because I can imagine, how sleepless my nights would be if I thought any one of them had access to a semi-automatic assault rifle? Fortunately these boys do not live in the USA.
There will always be troubled boys and young men, some with treatable illnesses. Better psychiatric services may catch many of them in time. But it is the loaded gun that differentiates a troubling altercation from a tragedy.
Mind You Reflections on mental illness, mental health and life 
We don’t really need another voice lecturing American politicians “It’s the guns, stupid.”
Unfortunately, I do think we need to repeat this phrase in many different forms as obviously it is still not heard.
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Yes we do and the students of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High school in Parkland Florida are doing just that.
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2nd Amendment rights to bear arms is a relic. NRA funding to political candidates needs to be noted before folks go to the ballot box.
But don’t ignore that mental health legislation throughout the USA and Canada fails those who have psychotic illnesses.Guns knives etc in the hands of Irate teenagers is tragic, but clearly guns in the hands of people at whatever age trapped by a serious mental illness is another. A lot has to be done on many fronts. This also applies to Canada. Rights and freedoms must be balanced by responsibilities by law enforcement, mental health services .
People reported to authorities must be heeded. It is amazing that even more tragedies do not happen given the availability of guns , drugs and and other dangerous contraptions. One myth is that psychotic people can’t plan. They can.
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It seems the second amendment rights are so engrained in the people of USA that they can’t see the obvious. How many more deaths will it take before the gun laws change. How could this young man have had so many guns and rifles acquired legally? Only in the USA. The family this latest young man in Florida was living with were well aware of his arsenal of guns… helllo. Are you kidding me!
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