On Wednesday evening, a rifle-toting gunman murdered 18 people and wounded at least 13 more in Lewiston, Maine, when he opened fire at two separate locations—a bowling alley, followed by a bar. A manhunt is still underway for 40-year-old suspect Robert Card, a trained firearms instructor with the U.S. Army Reserve who, just this summer, spent two weeks in a mental hospital after reporting that he was hearing voices and threatening to shoot up a military base.
While the other late-night talk show hosts stuck to poking fun at new Speaker of the House Mike Johnson on Thursday night, Stephen Colbert took his rebuke of the Louisiana congressman to a whole other level.
“Now, we know the arguments,” Colbert said of the do-nothing response politicians generally have to tragedies such as this. “Some people are going to say this is a mental health issue. Others are going to say it’s a gun issue. But there’s no reason it can’t be both.”
That isn't even the issue here. This was an individual who was becoming more mentally disturbed and voluntarily checked himself into a psych hospital. It should not be controversial whatsoever that we enforce laws to remove guns from these individuals until the time an independent psychiatrist clears them.
This isn't even just because of mass shootings. I'm worried about all the veterans with PTSD and depression who could commit suicide. We need to understand that taking someone's guns when they're in that state is helping them and could save their lives.
I will be the first person to protest if they illegitimately do this to people. I'm more concerned about the mental and physical health. Guarantee the return of their guns, or even allow a trusted individual to take them – just create incredibly steep charges if the person with custody of the guns hands them over prematurely and suicide or homicides happen.
None of this should be controversial. It literally helps no one to leave them with the guns. We can figure out a holding process for the firearms to ensure it isn't abused to take guns away and that people have their property returned. But there should be absolutely no disagreement that people who are actively having mental health crises shouldn't be near guns until they've recovered.
The corollary to your statement is that if we take guns away from people with mental illness, we are removing their ability to overthrow the government. This is a bad thing from the conservative mindset…
We want people to overthrow and kill people who are in the government, right? Right??
I know you're playing devil's advocate, but I'd point out that I don't want to take away guns from people with mental illness, I want to temporarily confiscate them from people who are suicidal and homicidal until they receive proper treatment and stabilize.
After all, if they commit suicide, they won't be very helpful for your (conservatives) ability to overthrow the government. They need to be alive, no?