When it comes to politics, I like to think issues through, get the facts, and listen to other people's opinions. This holds for my opinions on gun control as well. 

One of the most disturbing aspects of the ongoing gun control debate is the same tired trope we hear over and over again: mental illness and gun violence go hand and hand. On the one side, there is NRA president Wayne LaPierre, who advocates the use of a national database to keep firearms out of the hands of those with mental illness. On the other side, there is Mark Kelly, husband of Gabby Giffords, who is advocating for gun control reform. While I applaud Kelly's dedication to stop mass shootings, my skin crawled when I read his statement that the gun show loophole should be closed to keep guns away from "criminals, terrorists and the mentally ill."

Why does my skin crawl? The answer is that I have bipolar II, a serious and extremely dangerous mood disorder with a suicide rate 10-20 times that of the general population. I also have many friends in recovery from serious mental illnesses, amazing people who would never even consider shooting up a public place. In spite of the fact that we are part of the nefarious and misunderstood group "the mentally ill,"  we do not keep company with criminals and terrorists. The problem is not "the mentally ill," or even mental illness. It certainly isn't treated mental illness. And it isn't even really untreated mental illness. The reality is that most people with mental illness, even when it is untreated, do not commit violent acts; in fact, they are likelier to be victims of violence. Just because Jared Laughner, who has paranoid schizophrenia, is a mass shooter does not mean that everyone with a mental illness will shoot up a grocery store parking lot. 

With respect, then, to how gun control applies to those with mental illness: it doesn't, UNLESS the individual with a mental illness has a background of violent crime. That anyone in the year 2013 would argue for excluding a whole group of people from their constitutional rights astounds me. I am a person with a mental illness, who has never committed a crime, and I should have the same Second Amendment rights as any other law-abiding citizen. 

Gun control is about guns and crime. It is not about mental illness and guns.