# Conservative policies, not rhetoric, are responsible for the tragedy in Tucson **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 13, 2011, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-policies-not-rhetoric-are-responsible-for-the-tragedy-in-tucson/567466 "2011-01-13T16:15:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2011, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-policies-not-rhetoric-are-responsible-for-the-tragedy-in-tucson/567466/41 "2011-01-13T21:35:24Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > …By the same token, if they have periods where they are lucid and, presumably act ‘normal’, this might account for how they could get their hot little hands on a gun. > > -XT Well, really, whaddaya gonna do? Not sell the guy a gun, because you suspect he’s nuts? And have him pissed off at _you_? As for policies, what about the more or less minor policies? Like the one about selling a thirty round clip for a handgun? That was illegal under the Clinton rules, seeing as how nobody could come up with a good reason why a normal civilian would need such a thing. OK, well, now, maybe we can pass that little touch now. Maybe now we can have a sensible discussion about the bleeding obvious, without some folks hearing the whirr of black helicopter blades as we come for their guns and their daughters. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2011, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-policies-not-rhetoric-are-responsible-for-the-tragedy-in-tucson/567466/42 "2011-01-13T21:37:15Z")
I would look for any excuse to blame conservative policies. But on the mental health side, AZ policy looks very progressive. [This](http://www.acdl.com/New%20PDF%20Files/MH1NewAddress.pdf) document from the Arizona Center for Disability Law lays it out. > [@](#): > > In Arizona, you can be ordered by the court to undergo mental health treatment if you are found to fit one of the following categories due to a mental disorder: A Danger to Self; A Danger to Others; Gravely Disabled, which means that you are unable to take care of your basic physical needs; or Persistently or Acutely Disabled, which means that you are likely to suffer severe mental or physical harm that impairs your judgment such that you are not able to make treatment decisions for yourself. > Before the court orders you to undergo involuntary evaluation or treatment for any reason, you must first be offered voluntary evaluation or treatment. To my layman’s point of view, it sure looks like the accused met this standard and that others knew it. The problem is that the policy was inadequately enforced. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2011, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-policies-not-rhetoric-are-responsible-for-the-tragedy-in-tucson/567466/43 "2011-01-13T21:41:20Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] Well, really, whaddaya gonna do? Not sell the guy a gun, because you suspect he’s nuts? And have him pissed off at you? [/QUOTE] If I thought the guy was crazy or a liberal I certainly wouldn’t sell him a gun. > [@](#): > > As for policies, what about the more or less minor policies? Like the one about selling a thirty round clip for a handgun? That was illegal under the Clinton rules, seeing as how nobody could come up with a good reason why a normal civilian would need such a thing. Considering how quickly someone can change a clip, I’ve never seen the point of this ban to be honest. To me it’s like the ‘assault rifle’ ban…a ban because something looks really scary. > [@](#): > > OK, well, now, maybe we can pass that little touch now. Maybe now we can have a sensible discussion about the bleeding obvious, without some folks hearing the whirr of black helicopter blades as we come for their guns and their daughters. Because if only we didn’t have 30 round clips this entire tragedy would have been prevented. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2011, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-policies-not-rhetoric-are-responsible-for-the-tragedy-in-tucson/567466/44 "2011-01-13T21:45:15Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#): > > How about not doing it for crime prevention, per se, but rather for treating a sick person. We quarantine people all the time with diseases that might create a negative affect on society. This is similar. Because it is a lot easier to show that Typhoid Mary presents a danger to society than the homeless schizophrenic pushing a shopping cart down the street babbling to himself. **Maeglin** - I am having trouble opening the link you supplied - pdf is running very slow or crashing. Is there anything there about who is responsible for bringing such folks to the attention of judges? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2011, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-policies-not-rhetoric-are-responsible-for-the-tragedy-in-tucson/567466/45 "2011-01-13T21:48:39Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Because it is a lot easier to show that Typhoid Mary presents a danger to society than the homeless schizophrenic pushing a An effective policy wouldn’t be an all or nothing situation-- either you’re free and on the streets, or you’re locked up for life with meds shoved down your throat to keep you docile. That’s not effective or fair. There would need to be stages, evaluations, re-evaluation, multiple evaluators, degrees of committment, etc. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2011, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-policies-not-rhetoric-are-responsible-for-the-tragedy-in-tucson/567466/46 "2011-01-13T21:50:42Z")
We could do better, no doubt. Soon as we figure a way to provide more services while cutting the taxes that pay for them. But we’d have to start with some sort of system to help people who voluntarily step forward, and effective mental health care is expensive. Are we to expect that people with latent schizophrenic tendencies will move to full blown psychosis, but have had the foresight and maturity to keep their health insurance premiums up to date? Of course, that is a “pre-existing condition”. Probably lied on the application, checked “No” on the part where it asks “Are you nuts? Does anybody you know think you’re nuts?” ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2011, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-policies-not-rhetoric-are-responsible-for-the-tragedy-in-tucson/567466/47 "2011-01-13T21:54:59Z")
On the day before the shooting, Obama could gave ordered the national guard to lock up everyone named Jared in Arizona for two days, which would have prevented the shooting. Therefore, Obama is responsible for this tragedy. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2011, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-policies-not-rhetoric-are-responsible-for-the-tragedy-in-tucson/567466/48 "2011-01-13T21:55:12Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > If I thought the guy was crazy or a liberal I certainly wouldn’t sell him a gun. > > Considering how quickly someone can change a clip, I’ve never seen the point of this ban to be honest. To me it’s like the ‘assault rifle’ ban…a ban because something looks really scary. > > Because if only we didn’t have 30 round clips this entire tragedy would have been prevented. > > -XT I’d sooner sell to a liberal than some Tea Party guy in a “Guns n God” shirt, right now. But yeah, I agree the “let’s ban scary looking stuff” mindset is moronic. As for the “general rhetoric” lately, I posted this quote from Digby in the other thread and it may fit here also: “I think my favorite right wing gambit is their ability to pivot from being aggressive defenders of the right to say and do anything in a free country to a bunch of Victorian spinsters calling for the smelling salts over the ill-mannered behavior of their political opponents ---- in the same day!” ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2011, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-policies-not-rhetoric-are-responsible-for-the-tragedy-in-tucson/567466/49 "2011-01-13T21:58:18Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > …Because if only we didn’t have 30 round clips this entire tragedy would have been prevented… What a stupid thing for me to say! Sure glad I didn’t. Thanks for reminding me, **XT** , that I don’t say anything so rock solid stupid. Kinda reassuring, in a backhanded sort of way. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2011, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-policies-not-rhetoric-are-responsible-for-the-tragedy-in-tucson/567466/50 "2011-01-13T22:11:53Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > What a stupid thing for me to say! Sure glad I didn’t. Thanks for reminding me, **XT** , that I don’t say anything so rock solid stupid. Kinda reassuring, in a backhanded sort of way. Some people only serve as an example to others (usually with a graphic of a sinking ship). 😃 ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2011, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-policies-not-rhetoric-are-responsible-for-the-tragedy-in-tucson/567466/51 "2011-01-13T22:31:02Z")
[QUOTE=SteveG1] I’d sooner sell to a liberal than some Tea Party guy in a “Guns n God” shirt, right now. [/QUOTE] It was a joke, actually. I was thinking of the phrase ‘Mad dogs and Englishmen’ when I wrote that. [QUOTE=elucidator] What a stupid thing for me to say! Sure glad I didn’t. Thanks for reminding me, XT, that I don’t say anything so rock solid stupid. Kinda reassuring, in a backhanded sort of way. [/QUOTE] Ah…I didn’t realize that mentioning the 30 round clips was a complete non-sequitur on your part, 'luci. I figure it was part of the discussion. Glad I could help though…makes me feel all warm and gooey inside. -XT ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2011, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-policies-not-rhetoric-are-responsible-for-the-tragedy-in-tucson/567466/52 "2011-01-13T22:34:24Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > It was a joke, actually. I was thinking of the phrase ‘Mad dogs and Englishmen’ when I wrote that. … > -XT It’s all good. Don’t worry about it ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2011, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-policies-not-rhetoric-are-responsible-for-the-tragedy-in-tucson/567466/53 "2011-01-13T22:40:06Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > I would look for any excuse to blame conservative policies. But on the mental health side, AZ policy looks very progressive. [This](http://www.acdl.com/New%20PDF%20Files/MH1NewAddress.pdf) document from the Arizona Center for Disability Law lays it out. What is it about the parameters of court-ordered mental health treatment that makes them progressive or conservative? ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-policies-not-rhetoric-are-responsible-for-the-tragedy-in-tucson/567466/54 "2011-01-14T05:40:10Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Because it is a lot easier to show that Typhoid Mary presents a danger to society than the homeless schizophrenic pushing a shopping cart down the street babbling to himself. > > **Maeglin** - I am having trouble opening the link you supplied - pdf is running very slow or crashing. Is there anything there about who is responsible for bringing such folks to the attention of judges? > > Regards, > Shodan Nope. From page 6: > [@](#): > > Any responsible person can file an application for a court- ordered evaluation. Usually the person filing is a social worker, family member, or friend. The application asks a mental health agency to evaluate you to determine whether you should be ordered to treatment. The person making the application must believe that due to a mental disorder you are: 1) a danger to self, 2) a danger to others, 3) gravely disabled, or 4) persistently and acutely disabled. The application can be filed in two different ways: > [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > What is it about the parameters of court-ordered mental health treatment that makes them progressive or conservative? I was a bit ambiguous here. The law is pretty recent and flexible, and apparently is far ahead of most other states in this regard. This is what makes it progressive, not its location on some left/right wing continuum. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-policies-not-rhetoric-are-responsible-for-the-tragedy-in-tucson/567466/55 "2011-01-14T05:53:20Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > …Ah…I didn’t realize that mentioning the 30 round clips was a complete non-sequitur on your part, 'luci. I figure it was part of the discussion. Glad I could help though…makes me feel all warm and gooey inside… Entirely my fault. Rude of me not to keep your limitations in mind. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-policies-not-rhetoric-are-responsible-for-the-tragedy-in-tucson/567466/56 "2011-01-14T09:24:14Z")
Jared Loughner might have been miserable in a psych ward. But he would have had a “jailer” to rail against, & one prepared to restrain him. As a free man, he invented an image of the government & the Congress as his jailer, & a way to fight back. Seems like someone who would have been better off locked up, where the “jailers” would be real, & the fight lower-stakes. But many people who’ve been in psych wards aren’t that far gone nor that dangerous. Sometimes who gets mental health care is more about billing than about curing. It can be easy to think it’s a money game, & that patient with the oppositional personality will be happier free–and in many cases that’s right. At this point, I’d happily confiscate every last handgun in the USA if I thought it were workable & would help. I don’t expect it’s workable, but if it were it might help. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-policies-not-rhetoric-are-responsible-for-the-tragedy-in-tucson/567466/57 "2011-01-14T09:36:08Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > We can loosen up the requirements to get someone involuntarily committed and thus ensure that some people are committed when they don’t need it. Or we can make it easier to force someone to go on psychiatric medications, ensuring that some people will suffer the side effects of medicine they don’t need. Or we can continue with the status quo, and sometimes people get shot. > > Some problems have no good solutions. > > Regards, > Shodan > [@Marley23](#): > > True. But when there’s no perfect solution, don’t you have to do a cost benefit analysis and choose the best option? Don’t you need to make that option work as well as possible? I’m not convinced the system works all that well. This. I’ve been on SSRI’s, I knew a girl who took lithium, I’ve seen the inside of psych wards a couple of times. And there’s a lot about psychiatric treatment that sucks. It’s a young science & it’s still working through some false leads, & even after it gets through that it will be hard on some patients. But you know what sucks more? Turning an entire populace paranoid with the fear that they might be shot at the grocery; parents who don’t let their children run around out of doors for fear of crazies abducting them. We let crazies walk the streets, so now we are driving the mass of society crazy with fear. > [@Shodan](#): > > I am not necessarily saying that we are making too much of this; only that whatever we decide to do will have consequences. > > The first law of ecology - “you can’t do just one thing”. > > […] > > Do you think this Loughner guy (if he is indeed guilty) would willingly take medication if he wasn’t institutionalized? And do you think we have the resources to lock every schizoid up, especially proactively? Yes, I’m sure we do. It’s not a lack of resources stopping us now. The USA as a nation has a lot more resources than the anti-tax maniacs like to pretend. > [@](#): > > Somebody “should have noticed”. Well, OK. Can you come up with a set of rules that will apply to 300 million people that both do a better job of catching the crazies before they open fire, and also respect the rights of the huge majority of crazies who aren’t dangerous? If so, I would like to hear them. But you gotta be clear, you gotta be specific, and you gotta show that it will be better than it is now. Way to set the bar unnecessarily high. We don’t have to show those things to be perfectly true before we change the policy. ---
**Author:** ![Condescending\_Robot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a183cd/32.png) [@Condescending\_Robot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Condescending_Robot)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-policies-not-rhetoric-are-responsible-for-the-tragedy-in-tucson/567466/58 "2011-01-14T09:40:44Z")
It was both a Reagan mania about “cutting spending” (i.e., raising spending to record levels but making symbolic gestures) and a do-gooder impulse against coercing anyone into treatment that led to deinstitutionalization in the 80s and the continued vigorous refusal to control the dangerously mentally ill. No one side can be blamed for that in isolation. As for the impulse to stand amid the blood of the dead and use it to revive the ridiculous gun-confiscation movement, I can only say that it’s both as morally repugnant and politically suicidal as it ever has been. The owners of the 300 million guns in America that weren’t used to shoot a Congressman last weekend should not be punished, any more than all people of Arab descent should be punished when there is a foreign terrorist incident. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-policies-not-rhetoric-are-responsible-for-the-tragedy-in-tucson/567466/59 "2011-01-14T09:52:42Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > there is (in my view) a huge difference between being convicted and not being convicted, when dealing with the court system and especially with incarceration of any sort. As Bricker said, commitment is not incarceration. Also, I await your full-throated call to have trials for the Gitmo detainees. > [@elucidator](#): > > Well, really, whaddaya gonna do? Not sell the guy a gun, because you suspect he’s nuts? And have him pissed off at _you_? > > As for policies, what about the more or less minor policies? Like the one about selling a thirty round clip for a handgun? That was illegal under the Clinton rules, seeing as how nobody could come up with a good reason why a normal civilian would need such a thing. > > OK, well, now, maybe we can pass that little touch now. Maybe now we can have a sensible discussion about the bleeding obvious, without some folks hearing the whirr of black helicopter blades as we come for their guns and their daughters. Well, that’s their paranoid delusion. By creating a sense of unsafety we have maddened the nation. Through 1) changing the institutionalized into the crazy homeless, 2) lots of paranoid media with stories of psycho killers everywhere, 3) Dick Nixon & J. Edgar Hoover’s spying on the populace, & 4) the demonization of drugs, we have given this people a spirit of fear. Now they vote in that spirit. I am reminded in an odd way of a passage in the _Schrödinger’s Cat Trilogy_: Wilson made the bizarre claim that the right to bear arms was not in the US Constitution until the first half of the Twentieth Century; it was inserted into the history books by a conspiracy. Why would you do that? His answer was that the conspirators wanted a police state, so they needed an excuse for more police… I don’t buy the logic there of course, but it’s like that, isn’t it? If you make people insecure & afraid, whatever your reasons, you change society. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-policies-not-rhetoric-are-responsible-for-the-tragedy-in-tucson/567466/60 "2011-01-14T10:04:13Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > On the day before the shooting, Obama could gave ordered the national guard to lock up everyone named Jared in Arizona for two days, which would have prevented the shooting. Therefore, Obama is responsible for this tragedy. Well, yeah, you almost have a point there, about this being a bolt from the blue. Except that we should have seen that the mental health régime was failing nationwide, whereas knowing someone named Jared would commit a crime on a given weekend would require _precognition._ > [@Condescending\_Robot](#): > > As for the impulse to stand amid the blood of the dead and use it to revive the ridiculous gun-confiscation movement, I can only say that it’s both as morally repugnant and politically suicidal as it ever has been. The owners of the 300 million guns in America that weren’t used to shoot a Congressman last weekend should not be punished, any more than all people of Arab descent should be punished when there is a foreign terrorist incident. Why is confiscating a class of firearm “punishing” anyone any more than confiscating a banned pesticide? We could in theory declare eminent domain on concealable handguns & buy them all, come to that. You want to shoot up Safeway with a long gun, at least they may see you coming sooner. 😛 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-policies-not-rhetoric-are-responsible-for-the-tragedy-in-tucson/567466.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservative-policies-not-rhetoric-are-responsible-for-the-tragedy-in-tucson/567466.md?page=4)