Quote Originally Posted by J Wolfsberger View Post
Arizona law does prohibit selling firearms to the mentally ill. But they need to be identified in the system for the law to work. Jared Loughner's behavior gave plenty of warning to students and faculty at the community college. There were, reportedly, incidents with law enforcement intervention at his home. That was what prompted my question to Slap about protocols for identifying and dealing with the mentally ill. The relevance to SWC is that the sociopathy and/or fanaticism that lead to terrorism often give plenty of warning signals as well. Maybe the topics for discussion should be:

What are the protocols?
How did they break down in this instance?
How should they be changed?
How should they be extended to identify the truly dangerous without curtailing the freedom of ordinary citizens?
I think all states have laws that will allow them to prevent weapons sales to the mentally ill. They all also have laws allowing some level of non-consensual restraint of the mentally ill if they present some danger to themselves or others.

Let me be very clear, in many jurisdictions those laws are nearly meaningless. I've had to deal with a mentally ill relative for years, I have way too much personal experience with the gawping inadequacies of various state systems to believe very many of them have their acts together. Most do not. Even Virginia is backsliding, which is particularly stupid given it's proximity to Wash. DC.

It's only when the mentally ill kill the rich & powerful, or a whole lot of regular lower net worth people at one time, or the young in a group, that anyone considers doing anything serious about problems they've made with how they deal with mentally ill in their communities. I am both unsurprised by the events in Arizona, and I expect more of the same elsewhere. Community mental health is a *favorite* target of GOP politicians everywhere, and it's one of the first things on the block whenever anyone wants to tighten the belt. Communities care more about the grass getting cut at their children's parks than they do about their fellow citizens dying from mental illness. Sadly though when mentally ill people get violent they kill other people besides themselves. Like many of the other thoroughly ignored facts (Hello President McKinley) surrounding the issue of weapons and sick people, we're just going to keep doing what we've been doing.

The problem in this instance is not one of some type of weapon, rather it's literally a biological issue with the species that we are not handling well.

To give an example, I know without even doing hard comparisons (because I know about the state's 3 strike pizza culture) that it's way easier to get someone locked up in California for stealing a slice of pizza than it is to get them detained for being a threat to themselves or others.

The laws are a patchwork, and rather than being advocates & providing guidance about weapons regulation & the mentally ill, the NRA's so vicious about the 2nd amendment that no one's going to take this on. Yes, there's an obvious roaring dichotomy between a person who owns a weapon and cares about being responsible with it who then becomes *biologically ill* in such a manner that they can no longer be responsible, who then becomes the very sort of threat the NRA likes to rail against.

I could spend no end of days writing about all the totally awful behavior I have seen from courts and communities. Bad behavior in various `systems' is far more remarkable than any of the tinfoil wearing crazyness I've seen when I've visited my relative on nut wards.

People are kidding themselves if they think this will get fixed in any way. I expect more of the same. I'd recommend that anyone bothering to read this do the same. I predicted the VA Tech event fairly reliably, so I've got some reasonable basis to assert further negative outcomes.