Mental illness contributing to violent crime is all part to the BIG LIE campaign against private ownership of guns.
That is not true. It is not the
major component to violent crime but there is a known but small subset of disorders which do predict violent behavior. In general, mental illness does not and most of these folks are more likely to be a victim. So if we discuss the issue, you have to know what you are talking about. As Spats pointed out is the overgeneralized expansion of the laws that is troublesome without some sort of due process.
Also, while some of the organizations are anti firearm as are the most of the psychiatric/psychological organizations, they are also against the stereotyping of the mentally ill and over expansion of the laws. They are in favor of AWBs and UBCs but not for specific mental illness related reasons.
Mental illness has also been used as an excuse by some gun rights organizations to argue against AWBs as only the mentally ill would use them. This didn't go anywhere as the data do not support that all rampage folks have defined illness. Also, pushing it does lead to Red Flag laws - so that initial push was pulled back. There was a brief flurry of blaming autism (stupid - no evidence) and then video games (that was pulled back).
The problem with video games was that argument was based on studies supposedly demonstrating that exposure led to aggressive behavior. However, that research has replication problems, the dependent measures might lack ecological validity and also that the effects were short lived. Even worse for the attempt to blame video games, the methodology was applied to exposure to firearms images or guns themselves and also (supposedly) produced aggressive behavior. Again the research had problems. But you couldn't use video games as causal as compared to having an EBR as both would (if true) produce the same behavior. What a dilemma!
If one read what I wrote rather than being reactive, I said that the self-defense factor might be a factor counter to urbanization. Of course, it is complex but the major driver of antigun laws seems to come from the urban area voters and legislators.
Next, saying things like
The 2A is all about the right of self-defense which is exactly counter to the position of academics.
is flat out an overgeneralization. There are quite a few academics involved in supporting gun rights. Here's one that testified for campus carry in Texas and was seen on the San Antonio, Houston, Dallas and Austin news shows for his testimony and in those newspapers. There are others - so spare me the generalizations which are insulting and wrong.
The Second Amendment is more than self-defense. It is equally about the defense against tyranny. If you pay attention, you will see the rise of minority gun organizations as they fear the rise of tyranny from a particular political viewpoint as well as self-defense from extremists of a certain political strain.