Well, I would agree but that certainly wouldn’t support Darren Garrison’s contention.
Hey, shock therapy is making a comeback, baby!
What about mental screening to acquire a gun license? On the plus side, people could point at their firearms as a sign of mental health.
Seriously-If mental health is a problem what mental health abnormalities should be screened for when it comes to denying someone the right to own a firearm?
Mental health screening seems a little too intrusive for a Constitutional Right to be exercised. And let’s face it, the majority of gun deaths aren’t caused by a guy who’s obviously “crazy”.
What I’m saying is that I don’t know if there is a non-draconian solution at all. Because “society is against me so I’m going to kill myself and take some of them with me” isn’t a thing, it is an idea. Once ideas are out there, wars against those ideas aren’t easy to win (see: war on drug use, war on use of terror tactics.)
My understanding is that for things that are quantifiable - diagnosis and treatment - these have risen over this time period. This isn’t to say that the existence has increased because it could be a combination of awareness or changing definitions, etc.
This is misleading because it equivocates on what mental illness is. In the example you cite revoking the yet to be implemented rule on Social Security recipients, this focused on, among other things, those who have Rep Payees to handle their financial affairs. I believe the shooter in Florida was already a client of a mental health facility, but unless he was there because he needed a Rep Payee, saying both fall under the same umbrella as mental illness is very misleading.
Florida has what is known as the Baker Act. Many states have something similar (CA is 5150). Essentially what these laws do is allow the state to involuntarily detain someone based on mental health reasons if they meet certain conditions. If the shooter was taken on an involuntary detention, he would have been a prohibited person and no longer allowed to purchase or possess firearms. It seems like everyone knew this person had issues, expelled from school for violence, threats, etc. The FBI investigated a one-off comment about shooting up a school, etc. He was a client at some mental health treatment facilities already. And while I think it would be a net negative to stigmatize the mentally ill, increased assessment when looking at the totality of circumstances seems prudent.
Off the top of my head, ask about intent when purchasing a license. Of course people will lie (“Do you intend to shoot any other person with this gun?” “Oh, no, officer! I would never do that!”), but it’s better than letting society be a free-for-all.
I respect an individual’s rights, and as long as guns are legal, people should be able to get them. Especially since guns were invented nearly 1,000 years ago, it’s pretty obvious they aren’t going anywhere. But more guns in more places isn’t a viable solution.
As to abnormalities, and I don’t think I’d use that term, but I’d screen for depression, PTSD, penchant for violence, etc.
Thank you for the clarification.
Are there any stats that show how many have been detained under this act?
I’ll bite: If it is decided by the powers that be that mental health is a primary factor in mass and school shootings, then it would seem only reasonable that mental health screening should be required before one could purchase a gun.
But of course, neither of those things will happen. The “mental health” claim, like the “lost values” and the “there’s nothing we can do” claim are ways to avoid addressing a complex problem.
I’d like to see guns treated more like cars- mandatory education, licensing (with renewal intervals of some kind), and insurance. These steps would ensure that mass shooters Cruz, Lanza (Sandy Hook), and Pollock (Harvest Festival) for example, had someone objective interacting with them beyond just the point of sale. Everyone points out the “right shall not be infringed” part while conveniently ignoring the “well regulated” part.
I saw an article recently about the guy who manufactured and sold Pollock the specialized bullets Pollock used at the Festival. The guy, Douglas Haig, had been illegally manufacturing and selling- both online and at gun shows- armor piercing bullets for quite some time. Criminal complaint against Douglas Haig - Documents - Los Angeles Times Requiring that purchasers interact with more people would provide more opportunity to identify folks with odd ideas like Cruz, Lanza, and Pollock- all of whom who made odd comments that should have alerted those interacting with them that something was wrong.
Interesting article in The New York Times about the problem with trying to limit access to guns because of possible mental illness.
Since you’re putting this on par with mental health and access to guns as an angle on the problem, can I ask how you define this term and how you would address the issue, even in a general sense?
Trump wants people to report those who are “disturbed”. While serial killers aren’t mass shooters, the common link between people like Gacy, Bundy, and Gary Ridgway is that they killed people, yet weren’t “disturbed,” in the obvious sense. Even Dahmer looked “normal”.
It’s a red herring, a deliberate one.
I’m not saying gun control is the correct response to the shootings, but it’s a definite that the gun rights people toss out the mental health issue every time they are worried that the gun control advocates are going to use an incident of gun-related violence to promote their agenda.
Psychiatrists do an absolutely miserable job of predicting violence, and the predominant relationship of people with a psychiatric diagnosis to violence is in the role of victim of it.
I tried to do that, but the White House switchboard seems to be overloaded for the time being.
I would think reporting trump would be a good start . He has disturbed behavior on many occasions !
This is the correct answer.
*
“In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.”* ~Dan Hodges
Half right. We can do something about it, we just don’t intend to.
This. Before we can even propose mental health as a solution, you have to ask : how tight would mental health standards have to be to have caught even half of the 18 mass shooters?
Would they be so strict that 10% of the population would also count as “crazy”? 5%? even 1%?
See the logistics issue is that even if you could say “ok mental health care is free to all, no limit, everyone report everyone who seems disturbed”, it wouldn’t be practical if it turns out you would need to institutionalize 30 million people. Each person in a ‘funny farm’ is going to need a number of man hours from doctors, nurses, guards, and support staff. I wouldn’t be surprised if the ratio was near 1:1. (that is, each person you add needs 40 hours a week from all staffers to keep them treated)
So you couldn’t very well have 30 million of our population keeping another 30 million locked up. At a certain point we’d run out of people who could be employed to do anything else.
And no, mass execution isn’t the answer - try to execute that big a percentage of the population, and they are gonna fight back, and millions would die in the fighting.
At least not today. At some far, far, far future date I can imagine every human being having a control chip that prevents all crime, but that’s a looong way off.
Sounds awful. Glad I won’t be alive to see it if it happens.