For me, it started back when I was a child. I had toy guns that shot suction cupped darts out of them. I also had one that shot a beam of light on to a special target that knocked over soft drink cans. I don't want it to sound like I am bragging, but even then I was a excellent shot. It was a natural ability that I had. In most things, I was uncoordinated and ackward, not good at football or baseball. However, I had the proper hand eye coordination to be able to shoot extremly well.
As I got older, I graduated to pellet guns and then .22 rifles and handguns. Always under Dad's supervision and obeying the rules he set down. If I broke the rules, I would lose my ability to shoot. Many happy days were spent competing against myself, or in informal competitions with friends. As I grew older, I began to collect antique military rifles and handguns, mostly because I am also an amateur historian, but I also appreciated the design and craftsmanship and evolution of technology that those weapons represented.
As a teenager, I became strongly involved in the right to keep and bear arms and joined the National Rifle Association. What drove me to do that was one day realizing there were people who wanted to take away my guns. Not because I had done anything wrong, or broken any rules like Dad had set, but because someone else misused them. That did not make any sense to me then, and still does not do so to this day. My parents taught me personal responsibility at a young age. I never liked being punished in school because someone else did something that I was not involved in.
When I was a young man, and out of high school, I began to see the evil that is in this world. Evil does exist and is real. You can deny it and pretend it doesn't exist, but it does. It was because of that I obtained my license to carry a concealed weapon and began carrying one. I was glad that not only I was armed, but a friend as well when there was an attempted felony carjacking on us during a double date in 1992. A weapon was drawn, and the bad guy backed off immediately.
I've also carried a gun as a reserve deputy sheriff.
Furthermore, I would really like you to answer this question. Do you think people with a history of admitted serious mental illness should own firearms?
This is not an easy question to answer. To be honest, anyone who says its an easy answer is not thinking things out.
Who gets to define what a serious mental illness is? Is it something like Aspbergers or ADHD, or being a psychopath or sociopath? Do you get reported when you have a lot of stress at a bad job and ask your doctor for sleep aids or anti depressants? Am I "mentally ill" if I talk to God whom I can't see but believe exists? Would I be barred if I had a history of mental illness in my family, but don't show any symptoms? For example, the Social Security Administration was reporting elderly people who needed help with their finances to the government as being so mentally deficient they needed to be barred from firearms ownership. They weren't mentally deficient, they needed help with their money. The DSMD has changed over the years (homosexuality used to be considered a mental illness), so standards shift and change. One concern by several people, including doctors, that if you start preventing people who "mentally ill" from owning a firearm, many people will forgo the treatment they need. Also, what happens when people are cured, or no longer suffering from their illness. Are they still barred from owning firearms, or are they good to go now?
As I said, its not an easy question to answer. We really need to have a serious discussion about mental illness and firearms, but sadly, firearms are so politicized in this country that having that conversation without polticis and agendas cropping in will be impossible. What I am convinced of, from seeing it first hand, is that the mental health and mental treatment in this country is broken and needs to be fixed.
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