Intruder In Our Home – Why I Cannot Support Guns For the Mentally Ill

As you may have heard, Congress voted last week to allow people suffering from mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and psychotic disorders, to buy guns. I understand people who want guns to protect their own homes or hunt for the purpose of eating. I really do. But this latest acquiescence to the NRA is simply horrifying. To the Republicans who support this sort of nonsense, I ask you one question, have you no shame?

You may be thinking, hey, liberal jerk from L.A., get off of your liberal high horse and stop telling real Americans what to do. What gives some city boy the right to say that mentally ill people shouldn’t have guns? What possible experience could you have in your liberal haven? Funny you should ask.

A couple of months ago, on a Sunday morning at around 4:30 a.m., my wife woke me up. We live in an apartment complex with about 175 units. All are accessible from the courtyard and walkways. There’s a security guard on site and we have gates that require a key for entry. A few seconds after my wife shook me, I heard these blood-curdling screams for help. I had never heard screams like this. “HELP ME! HELP ME! PLEASE! PLEASE! HELP ME!” If I close my eyes now, I can hear them. You don’t forget screams like that.

The screams got louder and it was clear that the yelling was coming from just outside our neighbor’s unit. There was frantic banging on their door. It sounded like someone was dying. My wife went into our kitchen and began calling 911. I ran to our front door, and without thinking, I opened it. I have no idea what I was going to do when I encountered what I was sure was a dying neighbor, but you don’t really think at 4:30 a.m. when you hear screams like that. In retrospect, yes, I probably should have looked out the peephole.

I ran out of our front door and after about three steps, the source of the screams ran right past me into our unit. The door shut behind him, but thankfully did not lock. There was no dying neighbor. We had an intruder. I ran in after the intruder and found him in the kitchen standing behind my wife with his hands on her shoulders, basically using her as a shield. I yelled at him to get away, ran at him, and got him away from her. The intruder ran into our bathroom.

One of our neighbors heard the commotion and came into our unit at that point. He’s a young guy and a war veteran. Thank God for him. In what seemed like no time, he subdued the intruder and got him outside of our unit. No, the security guard still hadn’t arrived. It turns out he was doing his rounds on the other side of the complex.

Once outside, I stood in front of our front door to prevent the intruder from rushing into our unit again. Our neighbor trapped him from the other side. It was at this point that I realized that our intruder clearly had something wrong with him. He was disheveled and foaming at the mouth. He told us that he was being chased and that “they” were going to kill him. We tried to persuade him to leave but he wouldn’t. He just wanted to come back inside our home to hide from whomever he thought was chasing him.

The police finally arrived. The second our intruder saw the police, he ran to the wall and interlocked his fingers behind his head without much prompting. The policemen were able to deduce in about half a second that the man was mentally ill and told us that they were going to put him on a 5150. They barely asked us any questions. It seemed very much like business as usual for them.

So what does this have to do with guns? Well, I ask you, what if this paranoid mentally ill individual had a gun? Would my wife and I still be alive right now? Who knows? I’ll tell you this, I am grateful that he didn’t have one. To be frank, given what transpired, I’m thankful that we didn’t have a gun either. The intruder didn’t deserve to die. As it turns out he meant no harm, though we definitely didn’t know that at the time.

To conclude, the mentally ill do not need guns. They need our support and they need treatment. If you really want to get into it, they need early intervention so their mental illnesses don’t fester and there aren’t as many people suffering as adults. But getting back to the issue at hand, before you go telling me that mentally ill people suffering from psychotic disorders or schizophrenia have the right to own a gun, please remember this story. I know I will.