I have been a member of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) for 40 years, and it sickens me to see the the National Rifle Association (NRA) say mental illness is the cause of so much gun violence in America.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The NRA want to put the blame on mental illness for the growing gun violence in America, but in reality mentally ill people constitute less than one percent of all the violent gun crimes in America.
The NRA knows the mentally ill in the United States do not benefit from telethons or fund-raising drives like Cancer, Heart Disease, Muscular Dytrophy, Diabetes and scores of other illnesses that are funded by telethons and fund-raising drives.
To say the shootings at Columbine, Aurora, Sandy Hook and drive-by shooting are carried out by mentally ill people is patently false, absurd and an insult to every family in America that have a member of their family struggling with Scizophrenia, Bi-polar illness or chronic depression.
Mentally ill peope don't have the money to buy guns and ammunition, and even if they did their illness would prevent them from buying a firearm.
The NRA is totally disingenuous in trying to suggest stricter checks on the mentally ill would be a step in the right direction in preventing gun violence.
The media is also as bad as the NRA by going along with the ridiculous notion that tighter control of the mentally ill will cutdown on gun violence.
I would suggest before anyone buys into the scapegoating by the NRA they read this website by the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill:http://www.nami.org/
