Thread: Licensing and mental illness

With the last couple of incidents in the US, the whole issue of mental illness has come up again.

Interested to hear your guys thoughts on this.

I reckon most of the population suffer from some form of mental illness at some point in their life. Does that mean they should automatically be excluded from the licensing process ?

What about folks that suffer from mild depression and/or anxiety and are controlling it with medication ?

If someone had a mental health issue and has been treated and is all good now, how long should the stand-down period be ?

You can't really expect a doctor to say "well, John is ok now, all good", and then have the guy turn around and shoot someone down the line. So does that mean people simply do not declare any past or present mental health issues when applying ?

Other than looking at someones medical records (never going to happen with NZ privacy laws), how can the police effectively get a picture of the applicants mental health record ?

What if someone is "sane". Gets a license and then has a meltdown ? Should any mental health issues by "notifyable" in the case of a person who has a firearms license ?

Lots of tricky questions and no easy answers...