A Failing System: Mental Illness and the Right to Bear Arms

The contemporary zeitgeist promotes symptom management rather than addressing causes. This paradigm of superficiality only perpetuates problems. We see this effect in the disease-model of medicine, in our debt-based economic system, in our industrial agricultural system, and even in the way that society responds to issues such as violence and drug abuse. Symptoms are our feedback mechanism which should be viewed as a red light indicating that something is wrong. The response to this feedback today is to simply take the light bulb out. The problem is that even when the alarm is silenced, the underlying cause still exists and due to our negligence the problem becomes more severe.

Assume that I become dehydrated and decide to use acetaminophen to alleviate the resulting headache rather than drink water. I have turned off the signal from my body telling me to drink water, but I have ignored the problem. Modern medicine solicits a list of symptoms, applies a “disease” title to those symptoms, and connects it to the drug on the market that best applies to that diagnosis. Because our social incentive system is based on monetary gain, most drugs are not designed to heal a patient, but rather to create an illusion of health while the patient continues to become more dependent on the innovations of biochemistry. I theorize that many of the severe and unprecedented health conditions and psychotic states that we see today are the result of man’s attempt to manipulate nature with profit as an incentive. 

Just as most medication fails to address the cause of a symptom, we cannot eradicate violence by taking away the tools designed to inflict violence. If a man lives in a perspective that would lead him to commit to killing another human being, then that individual will have considered more than one way to carry out his intent. It is reasonable to assume that mass murder is not the product of a whim that would pass if the individual lacked immediate access to firearms. Often the act is incentives by lack of acceptance in a social system designed to mass produce a collective ego. Failure to comply with social standards implies that the individual is defective, or in social terms they have a disease or disorder. This title manifests in the ego of the individual which perpetuates the condition through a placebo effect. Man is the product of his thoughts. If we want to eradicate violent behavior, we must address the social conditions that create violence.

Political decisions today are made by the lobbyists with the most money. While the public is busy arguing over whom gets to keep their gun rights, real political decisions are being made. If anyone feels that they deserve the right to bear arms, then that individual should also wish to preserve the rights of others. This is not to serve others, but oneself. Just because one is not mentally ill today does not suggest that they will not be tomorrow. Only then will we decide that we should draw lines and distinctions because only then will we be affected. Only then we will be too late. The constitution was designed to protect the world from tyrannical government. The founding fathers recognized greed in man and so established a foundation of principles to give man equal voice. That foundation is completely ignored in politics today and therefore we have a system incentivized by power rather than principle.


Many of us dream of a world without violence, but we cannot be naïve. Violence and coercion are very much a part of the world we live in. It is our recognition of this that provokes us to fight so passionately to defend our own rights. One can argue that the mentally ill are not responsible enough to bear arms. The implication of this generalization will become very clear when the individual that once asked the government to take firearms away from the mentally ill receives an unexpected diagnosis. When we take a social stance we must remember that we are society and being human we are all subject to the same conditions that we see in others. Our decisions are often made to serve the conditions of the present rather than accounting for the unpredictability of the future.

Throughout the ages humans have focused on differences rather than similarities. We see the universe around us as something separate from us rather than a part of us. We depend on the life around us for sustenance but yet we feel that the life within us is more important than the life around us. The problem with separation ideology is that without the life around us, there will be no life within us. We are all connected to one another and to nature because we all depend on the same life force. We all thrive from the same source of energy. We all breathe the same air. We drink the same water. Our body is animated energy and our ego is self-defined; neither being who we are. Our perspective is constantly shifting so the only true identity that can be established is that I am. That same observer that lives in me lives in everyone. When we condemn one, we in fact condemn ourselves. When we place restrictions on others, we are restricting ourselves. It is for this reason that we live according to the principle that all men are created equal and if anyone deserves a right, we all deserve that right or an opportunity to earn it.

The utilitarian could argue that since we lack the ability to identify the socially irresponsible until after a crime has been committed, we should identify the groups with a high statistical probability of crime and restrict their rights for the greater social good. I argue that the socially irresponsible are the leaders of our corporations that lobby the government into war and lies to return an investment to its shareholders. Our food industry tortures livestock and poisons our food in the name of efficiency while the pharmaceutical industry catches the profit from our failing health. We have created an empire around the world so that we have access to resources and cheap labor allowing the continuation of the “American dream.” That dream is only real as long as we are asleep. The source of terrorism that we so fervently battle is not the individual that strikes back at a world that never accepted her or a misunderstood culture in a far-away land. It is the genocide of millions resulting from a greed-based incentive system.

Hatred is not born; it is cultivated. People are a reflection of the social zeitgeist that they are molded by. This idea is obvious when looking at indigenous cultures but it is more difficult to realize that we too wear a cultural lens that defines normality. The eccentric among us are often viewed as a problem by those that conform to social norms. Unconventional behavior is therefore diagnosed as a medical condition and treated with unprecedented psychotropic drugs in which the long term effects are still being discovered. Rather than recognizing individual talent and cultivating skills relevant to the personality of an individual, we label unconventional behavior as a problem which manifests within the ego of the individual. This often leads to a perpetuation of problems that the individual cannot escape.

For those that are born into less than fortuitous circumstances, the opportunity perceived in the capitalist model is not realistically attainable. We have designed a system that creates violent and criminal behavior by incentivizing social progress with greed, and for some the opportunity to access basic provisions. We live in a world where people live without shelter and provisions because of a system that capitalizes on our resources and wastes them through a consumer lifestyle. Money has nothing to do with our ability to produce goods, but it does prevent the homeless from living in one of the countless empty houses on the market. The affluent often fail to see this truth either due to lack of perspective or lack of empathy. Our social system allows a small percentage of the world to live in luxury at the expense of global suffering, destruction of the natural environment, and countless innocent lives. Violence is a symptom of a failing social system. Socrates once stated that “the secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old but on building the new.”

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