More work needed to understand mental illness

This is in response to fence post letter titled, "We must keep guns away from mentally ill" by Stewart E. Brekke of July 30. We have to put our political differences aside, come together and take a close up look at what mental illness is, a biology-based brain illness.

With all due respect, the fact that you used the term "screwball" to describe delusions that a person experiences during a psychotic break illustrates a lack of understanding of what a person with mental illness is and how people judge others with mental illness by their symptoms without getting to the root of the problem - improving health care to the mentally ill, medication, therapy, support from the immediate community and support to those who help them get better and their families who suffer with them.

Please, go to the National Alliance on Mental Illness website to find your local chapter and learn more about the illness and the people who live with them.

It's way more than just taking the gun away from a mentally ill personal It's solving the problem of mental illness itself.

Louis S. Guagenti

Arlington Heights