What's scarier than a crazy person with a gun? Not a lot. A crazy person with a gun is unpredictable, dangerous, prone to do harm. Without question, some of our recent "mass shooters" have been completely unhinged from sanity. Sane, reasoned people do not wake up in the morning, order their coffee and think, "You know, killing a crap ton of people sounds like a swell idea. Yes please, room for cream." Only the certifiably bonkers enjoy killing groups of innocent people. Or Muslims exacting jihad. Naturally.

It is this universal agreement of "Crazy people shouldn't have weapons," which will, undoubtedly, act as a Trojan horse for a major firearm confiscation. Because all of us sane people think insane people shouldn't have weapons. Here's the catch: how will "sanity" be defined? More importantly, who gets to define it? Who will be the arbiter of good mental health versus bad mental health?

If you're thinking "Oh that's super obvious, stop being so paranoid," congratulations. The Trojan horse has been wheeled right into your living room. It's watching Making a Murderer with you. SPOILER ALERT: It's overhyped and everyone sucks.

Throughout history "mental illness's" wide, ambiguous definition has been used to deny many people rights, or to even have them imprisoned, institutionalized and in some cases, killed. Let's traipse through history first so I may prove my point.

Homosexuality was, until quite recently, viewed as a mental illness and was even treated as a mental illness.

According to the American Psychiatric Association, until 1974 homosexuality was a mental illness. Freud had alluded to homosexuality numerous times in his writings, and had concluded that paranoia and homosexuality were inseparable. Other psychiatrists wrote copiously on the subject, and homosexuality was “treated” on a wide basis.  There was little or no suggestion within the psychiatric community that homosexuality might be conceptualized as anything other than a mental illness that needed to be treated.  And, of course, homosexuality was listed as a mental illness in DSM-II.  (The DSM – Diagnostic and Statistical Manual – is the APA’s standard classification of their so-called mental disorders, and is used by many mental health workers in the USA and other countries.)

If you happened to see the recent film, The Imitation Game, you'll note it was criminal to be homosexual in England, and the brilliant Alan Turing, the founder of modern computers (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) was prosecuted and given an option. Take drugs to "fix" his homosexuality, or go to prison. He was a war hero. He had a brilliant mind. He was prosecuted anyway. Should someone like him be denied the right to self-defense?

Transgenderism or "gender disphoria" is still seen by many a doctor and psychologist as a mental disorder. From the popular piece by Paul McHugh:

The transgendered suffer a disorder of "assumption" like those in other disorders familiar to psychiatrists. With the transgendered, the disordered assumption is that the individual differs from what seems given in nature—namely one's maleness or femaleness. Other kinds of disordered assumptions are held by those who suffer from anorexia and bulimia nervosa, where the assumption that departs from physical reality is the belief by the dangerously thin that they are overweight.

Incidentally, transgendered people have an alarmingly high rate of suicides or attempted suicides, much higher than the national average. Interestingly, even Obama has aknowelged the truth that most gun-related deaths are suicides. Given that transgenders already have a higher rate of suicide, and that their transgenderism is widely regarded as a mental disorder, would Obama or his leftist cohorts advocate for the banning of transgenders from having guns? After all, they fall into both categories: prone to suicide, mentally ill. Consistency much?

Disagreeing with government is where I'm sure I'll be called paranoid. Yet another accusation of being "mentally ill" by the way. Yet how many examples do we have from leftists who think even disagreeing with global warming (we're called "global warming deniers") not only warrants the stripping of our first amendment rights but also call for our imprisonment. Look at Robert F. Kennedy as proof:

“I think it’s treason. Do I think the Koch Brothers are treasonous — yes, I do,” Mr. Kennedy said, Climate Depot reported. “They are enjoying making themselves billionaire by impoverishing the rest of us. Do I think they should be in jail — I think they should be injuring three hots and a cot at the Hague with all the other war criminals. Do I think the Koch brothers should be tried for reckless endangerment? Absolutely, that is is criminal offense and they ought to be serving time for it.”

In some communist countries like the USSR, the act of disagreeing with government or actively opposing it has been called "crazy," resulting in the stripping of rights or imprisonment.

Female Hysteria hung on for a long time, ladies. In fact as recently as the 19th century, "hysteria" was enough for a father, husband or brother to commit his daughter, wife, or sister to a mental institution. After all, she was deemed "mentally ill." Here's the wide definition of hysteria, from none other than Huffington Post:

Hysteria was the first mental disorder attributed to women (and only women) -- a catch-all for symptoms including, but by no means limited to: nervousness, hallucinations, emotional outbursts and various urges of the sexual variety.

I think you're catching my drift. "Mental Illness" can also include every day disorders like being bipolar (manic depressive) or even having night terrors.

Where do we draw the line between "mentally ill and prohibited from having a weapon" and "healthy"? Who, may I ask, gets to define it? The Senate? A senate committee? A room full of doctors? Both? Before you jump on the train of "Yes, the mentally ill shouldn't have access to guns!" make sure you understand that at any given time, even your healthy fear of whatever (spiders, government overreach, or pickles) may fall under the ambiguous term of mental illness.

A final sidenote before we wrap this baby up. Look at how the government has loosely defined who might be a potential "terrorist." Warning, you might be on the list. Feel crazy yet?

Will the liberals ever ban the Second Amendment? Probably not. But it would be much easier for them to get people to go along with their "common sense" gun control measures. Hey, there's nothing scarier than a crazy person with a gun. Right?

The trick is defining "crazy."

Written by Courtney Kirchoff and Steven Crowder