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When it comes down to it, your perception of danger is going to color how you behave, and that's totally alright for you. The reality in Austin, though, is that it's very safe as far as large cities go. These handful of incidents you describe that happened over the course of four years are awful, but are also incredibly rare given how many people live here.

IIRC, a month after we moved out of the city, there was a shooting at a shopping area I frequented often.

Have you ever considered that it's not the outside that is the problem, but rather the fact that "outside" for you is Texas?

Okay, long rant, but important topic: Way too vague. One of the maddening things about health care is how rarely medical terminology lines up with legal. I know YOU aren't proposing a law, but this is the kind of language they like to tap into, so... Through a layman's lens, saying a person has a "mental health history" paints a pretty clear picture of instability, but what actually constitutes a mental health history? You've been to marriage counseling? Gone to the ER for a killer headache that turned out to be 'just' stress? Been required by a prospective employer to take the Myer's Briggs? "Sorry, your results came back as ISTP, we're going to need to confiscate your firearms."

It takes almost nothing to have a 'mental health history'. And even if you have a history of something noteworthy, it can be managed or gone. I have a history of a fractured and degloved thumb, cuz when I was a dumbass kid I managed to get it slammed into a heavy sliding glass door... then panicked and pulled it out as hard as I could. Today? Not even a scar - looks and functions completely normally. ...should I be barred from activities that require use of my hands due to a history of debilitating thumb injury? Shit can heal, and your brain is no different. So back to mental, let's say you have a history of severe depression w/ suicidal ideation. Sounds like a bad combo with firearms, yeah? But if the underlying causes were identified and treated and you're no longer struggling with your mental health, should that old diagnosis still prevent you from doing things that require a sound state of mind?

When lawmakers start tossing terms like that around, crank your skepticism up to 11 - it's up there with "protecting the children!"'s level of not doing shit to protect children while doing quite a lot to cripple your rights.

We see similar examples written in as cop-outs to make oppressive legislation easier to sell. i.e., abortion is illegal - unless the mother's life is at risk - wtf does it mean for her life to be at risk? Like, okay, her blood pressure is 90/60 and dropping... that's pretty low, but she's not going to die like right now... I guess let's check again in 5 mins? ...85/57, yup, still some internal bleeding... but she's still got some color in her cheeks, maybe it'll still turn itself around? 5 more mins. Aw fuck, the BP machine isn't getting a reading a reading anymore, where the fuck did the manual cuff go?! There it is, go go go she's turning fucking blue... 68/43, that placenta needs to gtfo like RIGHT NOW, tell the OR to start setting up for an emergency surgery- fuck fuck fuck we just lost heart beat, get the crash cart, overhead a Code Blue... 20 mins of compressions on a fucking corpse later and she's finally declared dead. Had the abortion happened when she was at 90/60, she'd have been fine; but NO doctor is going to put their license (and freedom) on the line to claim that 90/60 is life threatening, and waiting to start those interventions until it looks like an emergency is basically a death sentence.

Any non-specificity in legal definitions for medical criteria should be rejected automatically. Give me ranges. Actual lab values. Vitals. Times. Put those in the fucking law - there should be zero ambiguity about this kind of shit.

I think it’s time we stop swallowing the “mental health issues” excuse and pretending the real problem is just how a mentally ill person got a gun. That’s a distraction, a way to avoid talking about why so many people are desperate, untreated, and breaking.

How exactly do you plan to “screen for mental illness” in gun ownership? A psychic hotline? A vibes check at the gun counter? It’s absurd. If mental health is truly the concern, then the solution isn’t in background checks, it’s in actual, accessible, affordable mental health care.

But here’s the reality: in the richest country on Earth, getting mental health treatment can cost more than rent. People get put on months-long waitlists. Insurance companies deny coverage for therapy while covering opioids and antidepressants like candy. And then everyone acts shocked when someone cracks under the weight of it all and lashes out, sometimes violently, sometimes in a Target parking lot.

If you’re serious about preventing this, you don’t start with the gun store. You start with making sure people never get to that breaking point in the first place.