Yes, absolutely! A history of mental health issues and a criminal background is the one condition that I believe permits the repudiation of gun rights. For the sake of human happiness, we must do more to prevent guns from getting into the hands of those who are mentally unstable or have the intent of harm the innocent.
Depends on what you mean by "gun control". I'm not a fan of throwing laws at social problems, even if the cause is noble -- because it's an approach that doesn't work. In an earlier time a Temperance movement tried to address another social problem by banning alcohol; that was a colossal failure and had to be undone.
The sobering reality is that if God Herself came down at noon today and declared, "that's it, no more gun manufacturing, anywhere, ever", we'd still have more than enough to arm every man, woman and child in this country. That fact alone tells us what an obsession we have. We're simply not ever going to get on top of that "if we just pass the right laws", and I see that approach mostly as opportunistic politicking to make it look like "we're doing something". We really are not.
This is a
social problem, not so much a legal issue. It's a legal issue insofar as laws protecting against assault, murder, armed robbery etc, and as far as responsible regulation. But the underlying dynamic is an extremely unhealthy obsession with guns and death. As a culture our knee-jerk reaction to any issue that comes up is to shoot it, destroy it, obliterate it, overpower it. The "might makes right" mentality. THAT is what needs to be addressed.
Social values are a FAR more effective behavioural influence than legal deterrents. We've done much with, for example, smoking, which used to be pervasive, socially acceptable, even socially expected. That's been turned around. We've made strides with racism, sexism, homophobia and other prejudiced mindsets. These were by and large not done with laws but with attitudes. Laws can render an assist -- drunk driving for example -- but the goal is to make the attitude a
voluntary one. It's no longer socially acceptable to drunk-drive, smoke, or refer to a black person as "******". It can be done -- if it wants to be done.
Social values are certainly not absolute prevention; gun violence happens in other cultures that don't share this gun fetish like we have. But it can reduce the phenomenon from the epidemic it is to a rare crime.
