All I seem to read lately is mental patients and firearms. How did these two become so entwined? Some history. In the 1980s a conservative congress took Reagan’s promise to cut federal spending literally by passing a bill that said in essence, “No citizen may be committed to a mental institution against their will.” The effect was two pronged in nature. One, It saved billions in healthcare funding and two, within weeks our cities were inundated with tens of thousands of ex-mental patients sleeping in cardboard boxes, under bridges and begging for money on every corner.