Ryan: Congress Focusing On 'Mental Illness Reform' To Stop Mass Shootings

[DonViejo]

Source: Talking Points Memo




By ESME CRIBB Published OCTOBER 3, 2017 10:37 AM

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) on Tuesday said Congress is focusing on “mental illness reform” to prevent mass shootings in the future, but defended Congress’ passage in February of a bill revoking a regulation preventing certain people with mental illnesses from buying guns.

House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA), who was shot in June during a Republican congressional baseball practice, said at Ryan’s weekly press conference that he and his wife were praying “for the people that were involved in the Nevada shooting.”

“I continue to just let everybody know who prayed for me during those tough times how much it meant,” Scalise said of his own recovery. “It was tremendously uplifting and gave me and my family a lot of strength during those tough times.”

“We’re all just reeling from this horror that we witnessed in Las Vegas,” Ryan added. He called the shooting, which left 59 people dead and hundreds more injured, “just awful.”

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ryan-mental-illness-reform-mass-shootings

[snowybirdie]

1. Excuse me

but wouldn't mental health reform be included in a health care bill which you can't pass? Shoddy job, Mr Speaker

[world wide wally]

2. Yeah, as they cut funding for mental health care

[Not Ruth]

3. Paddock was not mentally ill, or at least in a lifetime of white collar jobs with benefits

He was not diagnosed. His brother thought that he was fine.

[brush]

12. Really? Of course he was mentally ill. Sane people don't do what he did. But Ryan is still...

as worthless a prick as trump. He should be talking about Congress focusing on gun control.

[Not Ruth]

13. Undiagnosed means that as far as any laws are concerned, he defaults to not being mentally ill

[brush]

14. Your opinion please, are you saying that the man was not mentally ill?

[relayerbob]

17. I believe he's saying that any law

limiting guns to mentally ill people would not have applied in this instance, as he had no diagnosis of mental illness prior to this

[brush]

21. That still doesn't answer my question.

And really the questions all should be about how to institute gun control and not avoiding it like Ryan is already beginning to do.

[Not Ruth]

24. If mental illness disqualifies one from owning a gun (and it does in many cases), a medical

professional makes that diagnosis. Which has never happened in the case of Paddock. Laypeople have, after the fact, which is as they say, obvious. It is also late.

[Not Ruth]

22. No

[brush]

25. Thanks for the straight answer.

[tclambert]

33. Of course he was in fact mentally ill. But not legally in any way that a background check would flag

So they would sell him a gun, and they would not force him into treatment. He hadn't ever done anything overt enough to raise the alarm.

[brush]

35. True. Gun control is going to be rough but they should first re-instate the assault weapon ban.

Last edited Tue Oct 3, 2017, 04:31 PM - Edit history (1)

That would have stopped him with the AR-15s.

[kimbutgar]

4. Sorry "F" the prayers we new laws on guns

What happened to " well regulated"?

[mountain grammy]

5. by getting rid of healthcare?

[Botany]

6. how about stopping mentally ill people from getting guns?

Trump Repeals Rule Designed To Block Gun Sales To Certain Mentally Ill People

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/28/517799119/trump-repeals-rule-designed-to-block-gun-sales-to-certain-mentally-ill-people

[Marengo]

36. The repeal was supported by the ACLU and several national disability rights advocacy organizations

[MyOwnPeace]

7. BULLSHIT!!!!

They only thing they're focused on is the latest deposit made to their accounts by the NRA!

[Loge23]

8. Anything but the NRA

The terrorist organization, the National Rifle Association (NRA), absolutely owns our government.
There will be nothing - nothing - either spoken about or debated upon that infringes one iota on anything that the NRA supports.

This is the country we live in now - a country that is clearly in an advanced state of decline and one that is that perilously approaching total authoritarian rule or anarchy.

Blame is not only on the cretins in Congress and the Senate, and the WH, but squarely on the idiots that continue to vote for them. The bell tolls for thee.

[IronLionZion]

9. Yet these assholes have been cutting mental healthcare funding

and fought against coverage in insurance plans.

The Onion called it
This Shooting Isn’t About Gun Control We Refuse To Pass, It’s About Access To Mental Health Care We’re Continuing To Gut
http://www.theonion.com/blogpost/shooting-isnt-about-gun-control-we-refuse-pass-its-57095

[global1]

10. Well I Guess The Repugs Have Made The Decision That This Mass Shooting Was Caused By....

mental illness of the shooter and not the GUNS and AMMO that he had amassed. This arsenal of deadly killing weapons.

So they have spoken and this issue is now resolved and they will have caved to the NRA once again.

It is time for the American People to approach this mass shooting/gun issue like they did the healthcare insurance issue.

There must be peaceful protests all around the country to coerce Congress to finally do something to stop these mass shootings and not just pass it off as a deranged shooter.

[logosoco]

11. While I do think we could do a lot more for mental illness in this country,

as part of a universal type health care system, I don't see it doing much to really stop people killing each other with guns.
It is easy to buy a gun, then as time passes, if a person's mental health deteriorates, they can begin to see the gun as an "answer" to some problem they are having.

So, talking about mental health is good. Thinking it would do all that much for mass shootings makes it sound like Congress is using that to placate the people who are tired of living in a country with so many gun killings.

[MosheFeingold]

15. I'm game if it's real reform

Which I doubt.

Remember, the terrorist in France killed more people with a truck than this shooter did. We can't ban trucks.

And gun laws would do littler here. First, the shooter passed background checks.

Worse, the shooter apparently modified weapons to make illegal machine guns, which any idiot can do with a book on the topic or a visit to Youtube. There's even a video where a guy made an AK-47 from scratch out of a rusty garden shovel. It's not fricking rocket science. Machine guns (in particular AKs) are not complex pieces of machinery. It's not much more than a receiver, a spring, a rod, and a trigger.

Heck, you can go buy books on how to make IEDs on Amazon. (They're published by the US Army, no less.) Everything you need is at Home Depot.

Controlling crazy people is not a perfect solution (and this guy would undoubtedly have flown under the radar --- he was rich and clearly very intelligent), but it is a start.

Let's see what they propose, in good faith. Yes, it's almost certainly a waste of time. But it is a constructive solution.

[relayerbob]

16. We can start by

Determining what mental illness causes people to vote these assholes into office

[VermontKevin]

26. And that wins the Internets for today.

[HAB911]

18. Now that is the funniest shit I have ever heard

[doc03]

19. Every time they have the excuse, if the guy gets guns

legally, well a background check wouldn't have stopped him. If he uses a pistol an assault weapon ban wouldn't have prevented it.
Now it's mental health, I seem to remember they just changed the law that Alzheimer patients could still get a gun. They could outlaw windows maybe. How about not allowing sales to anyone that voted for tRump.

[Paladin]

20. Standard, repeatedly-used deflection maneuver.

Result: No action whatsoever.

[Initech]

23. IT'S THE GOD DAMN GUNS YOU STUPID ASSHOLES!!!!!!

[turbinetree]

27. Hey zippy Ryan, you really are not a case model for promoting life

all one has to do is look at the health care bill your gang passed some time back to kill people, and what your gang has done for for the lack of background checks which has killed people , and the best one to date, is letting CHIP for children to be not funded, so that children will suffer.

So take your AYN RAND right wing republican logic and go FUCK yourself.


And I have a solution for this and I will donate to this organization again and it is this:

https://randybryceforcongress.com/

[ATL Ebony]

28. Of course all mass shootings are not by mentally deranged --

how about them guns? Could that be the problem A-hole.

[gopiscrap]

29. why don't you focus on some control also...you asswipe

oh I forgot, they do the NRA's bidding

[mopinko]

30. as long as we start keeping track of how many guns a person has

and start to see stockpiling guns and ammo as an indicator of serious mental instability, good.

[Doreen]

31. OK, ryan you misrable fuck.

As we have been seeing what you shitheads have been wanting to take out of health care mental health care has been one of the big ones to take out. Now, all of a sudden you are "claiming" to want to install that into your new lack of health care bill? Yes, having ACTUAL mental health care would be good but WE NEED GUN CONTROL!!!

[BillyBobBrilliant]

32. Shouldn't the first topic of the Mental Health reform action

be to ensure that 'Total fucking whack jobs' can't hold a position of responsibility...Like the office of the President of the united states?

[tclambert]

34. Focus on mental illness? Why, do they think he voted for Trump?