BATFE form 4473 question 11f: Have you ever been adjucated mentally defective

BATFE form 4473, q.11f: Have you ever been adjucated mentally defective (which includes having been adjudicated incompetent to manage your own affairs) or have been committed to a mental institution? Y/N

Answer yes to that question and you're not getting the gun you intended to purchase. Lie and answer "no', and you may not pass the NICS background check, which may have record of your mental illness if you have ever been committed to a state run facility. But the reporting of mentally ill patients is very incomplete, so odds are good that your mental illness has gone unreported.

Now there's talk of legislation that would force health care professionals to report any patients who "may possibly" be a threat to themselves or others. Turn 'em over to NICS or face possible criminal charges. I'm not saying mentally defective persons should be allowed to buy guns, no absolutely not, mentally defectives should be kept far away from firearms. My point is glaringly obvious. Any person owning a gun or wishing to own a gun is gonna stay away from the psychologist/psychoanalyst/psychiatrist office, for fear of finding their name on a list in the NICS system. Fear that they'll never own another gun, fear that they'll find BATFE or some "law enforcement" branch of Homeland Security in their house at a totally unexpected moment. Those fears will keep them away from the health care they may very well need. 

Think about this a moment. Maybe you're having trouble sleeping. Anxiety. Depression. Feeling generally unhappy. Somebody thinks you're "drinking" too much. You could probably use a little help. Maybe you could use a whole lot of help. But you're a gun owner and most definitely do not ever want your name flagged in the NICS system as having been treated for a "mental illness". Maybe you're not a gun owner and just don't like the fact that your government may have your name on a list in some "criminal information system." 

You're absolutely no threat to anybody. So what do you do? You avoid getting treatment that could very well improve your life. That's what you and most anyone else in your position is going to do. You will choose to suffer without help for fear you'll lose your rights. 

And what about firearm owners who may be living with a mentally ill person? Nancy Lanza, mother of the Sandy Hook shooter paid for her stupidity with her life. Based on what friends and relatives have said, she was fully aware (or should have been) of the fragile state of her son's mental health. Required home schooling. Hours upon hours of violent video games. No social skills. Frustration. Anger. Why would this woman keep guns and ammunition in the home with a son in this dangerous mental state? We'll never know because she is dead. A victim of her own stupidity. 

This is a complex issue that's at the core of the "mass murders" we've seen. I don't have the answers. I'm not an expert on the nation's mental health system, other than to say it appears by all accounts to be "broken." But this is what's at the core of this problem. Firearms are not the cause. You first have to answer these questions: Why would someone want to kill large numbers of people they don't know, people who have never done anything to harm them, kill children in a most brutal fashion? What's the killer's motivation? What inspires evil?

You can take away the guns, but the evil and mental illness and motivation to kill will still exist. They'll just find another tool for the killing.