Can you cite any credible sources or examples to support your position? Also, I'm pretty sure that a lot of people who seriously do want to do acts of extreme violence with a firearm are at least smart enough to shut the fuck up until after their background check goes through and they're off with the item. It's not always obvious to the average person if a particular individual is planning something, especially post-Columbine and 9/11, where pretty much any innocuous comment is treated in a ridiculously serious manner.
The most authoritative source that I could probably point towards would be the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published by the American Psychological Association. The DSM lists neither psychopathy nor sociopathy as recognized mental disorders, but it does list antisocial personality disorder. There's a compiled list
here of the conditions which are listed in the most recent addition of the DSM.
For what it's worth, I have never denied that there are people who could conceivably pass a mental health screening only to then go on a killing spree later. I do find it interesting that you seem to think that this is an argument worth putting forward though. Does something need to be perfect in order for it to be advantageous or at least worth considering? If so, then you could probably argue against just about any law or government policy.
One is a constitutional right, the other is not. Do you think it's fair to license people to allow them to post opinions on internet message boards?
In the United States, it is a constitutional right, although interestingly it is not one that originated in the US. The Second Amendment was in fact borrowed from the 1689 English Bill of Rights, and yet, guns are now virtually completely banned in the UK. Now, I'm certainly not suggesting that America should adopt such an approach, but this does at least speak to the fact that what we consider a 'right' depends largely upon societal and legal consensus. Simply declaring that something is a constitutional right isn't really an argument, unless you're limiting the conversation to an American legal context, which I am not.
Do I think it's fair to require people to have a license to post their opinions on the internet? No, but that's a hypothetical (and frankly hyperbolic) question that has nothing to do with the subject under discussion, which is gun laws.
Besides, treating firearms like we treat vehicles, with licensing, tabs, etc., is probably not a good idea, as governments have a vested interest in not allowing their subjects, er, I mean, "citizens," to be armed. This has been true of almost any government throughout history.
If this is true, then why do the vast majority of elected officials in the United States support the Second Amendment? I think you'll find that in reality, unless you're talking about tyrannical regimes, most governments largely reflect public opinion when it comes to gun laws. In the UK for instance, the vast majority of people don't own guns, and as such, they are fine with guns being largely banned. In the US, the gun culture is a lot stronger, and the law reflects that.
And what kind of European countries are supposedly "freer" than the US, firearm regs aside?
How about any European country without US levels of mass incarceration? On a less flippant note though, I think we really need to establish what we mean by freedom, because a lot of people seem to have disagreements about it without realizing. For me, freedom is best defined as the power that you have to make decisions over your own life, and along this line, there are several European countries that I think can be said to be more free than the US. The Netherlands for instance is one of the most open and permissive countries in the world, and they boast some of the highest levels of happiness.
Could you go rollerblading naked through a busy street with your Muslim transsexual lover while smoking marijuana in Texas? I don't think so. Checkmate!
The fucking UK? Pfff, they're actually convicting people of "hate crimes" for making idiotic videos of dogs saluting Hitler or posting "offensive" rap lyrics on Instagram. And the police had to struggle to find someone to pretend to be offended to get a conviction.
I think this is a separate issue from guns though, because I see no evidence that it would be any different if the citizens of the UK were allowed to have guns. The reason that you don't see these idiotic 'hate crime' cases in the US is because you have the First Amendment. If you didn't have the First Amendment, who's to say that the easily offended wouldn't try to pull this sort of thing in America? I certainly can't envision a scenario where Americans would take up arms against the government because some idiot got arrested for a dumb video, could you?
RKBA in itself is not the sole indicator of personal and political freedom in any given country or state, but it most certainly does have a strong correlation.
I just don't see the correlation. Yemen has high rates of civilian gun ownership, yet their society is far more repressive than any country in Europe.
One last exhibit: the states with the strictest gun control are generally lower on the personal freedom scale compared to other states, with California and New York being the two worst. The bottom five are also Democrat mainly, go figure. The bottom ten have Kentucky but that's about it for the non-Democrat states in that range.
https://www.freedominthe50states.org/
According to a libertarian think tank, perhaps, but as a former libertarian myself, I've come to reject the way that libertarians tend to define freedom. I certainly don't think that California and New York are less free than Alabama and Mississippi.
