A lot of this is why I believe we should have mental health checkups be as easy and as common as a dental checkup.
Only there's a slight little problem with that; while everyone should get their bi-annual dental checkup, many go for years without ever seeing a dentist, and only when they end up with a tooth ache.....pretty much as is the case with many mental health cases. Far too many don't seek help or are forced into it, until it is already to late.
Have spent over 20 years in the paramedical services, I can't tell you how many "normal people suddenly snap" according to their friends and/or relatives when we responded to the patient for the first time.
Sure, we had our "regular crazies", but besides putting someone on a 72-hour, involuntary psychiatric hold (
Section 5150 of the California Welfare and Institutions Code).....that has such stringent requirements to protect the patient, that it's not something that most health professionals are willing to do, unless the patient makes certain outright and obvious threats of harm to himself or others......there's not a way that we can force all of the loonies to seek psychiatric attention.
Admittedly not knowing all of the facts regarding Adam Lanza, but from what's be written in the media, he couldn't have been committed under a 5150 hold here in CA, simply because he wouldn't talk to people, make eye contact, or some other odd, but non-aggressive behavior towards himself or others.
Even if his mom hogtied him a forced him to the facility, they couldn't make him stay simply because his mom said he needed help.
He would have had to contest to treatment or commitment, and from the sound of it, I think we know how that would have gone.
Yes, other than those who are gravely disabled and unable to care for themselves, or have made
credible threats, everyone has inalienable rights that allows them to refuse mental help and/or treatment.
So yes, the only ones that will ever get help are those who voluntarily seek it out.....we cannot force anyone to get a mental health evaluation, just like we can't force everyone to get tested for communicable diseases, STDs, or any preventative medicine.....even though I think that's as if not more important, and effect a greater number of the population.
It's not the availability of facilities, it's the availability of disposable income or having insurance to pay the dental, medical, or mental treatment.
Maybe with our upcoming "Health Care for America" plan we'll see more widespread coverage to health and mental care, but that still remains to be seen with the efforts of one of our political parties.....and no, I don't want to get this thread sidetracked on that, but it's just the current facts we deal with. Time will tell....
Yes, it is "pie-in-the-sky thinking" as those are simply conjecture and nothing based on fact.
Heck, one might say that drug abuse could increase. We'd simply have more people with prescribed drug problems and less illegal ones.
It was always a joy to run on the "mental health patient" who had overdosed on their "psych meds", whether intentional or accidental....and was now bouncing off the walls more than they had previously before having the meds prescribed.
Do you realize that many teen drug users point to their first introduction to them by stealing prescribed meds from mommy and daddy's medicine cabinet?
The Supreme Court answered that in 2008 with an affirmative ruling to the question......"The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted limited to the following question:
Whether the following provisions, D.C. Code §§ 7-2502.02(a)(4), 22–4504(a), and 7-2507.02, violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes?..... in D.C. vs. Heller.
Much of their decision was based on the fact that the orignal framers only spoke of "arms" generally, and none specifically......
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government" -- Thomas Jefferson, 1 Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334
"The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed." --Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824. ME 16:45
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." -- Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers at 184-188
"One of the ordinary modes, by which tyrants accomplish their purposes without resistance, is, by disarming the people, and making it an offense to keep arms."-- Constitutional scholar Joseph Story, 1840
"As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun. While this gives [only] moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun, therefore, be the constant companion to your walks." -- Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1785. ME 5:85, Papers 8:407, writing to his teenaged nephew.
It can even be traced back further.....
"...quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est." [...a sword never kills anybody; it's a tool in the killer's hand.] (Lucius Annaeus) Seneca "the Younger" (ca. 4 BC-65 AD)
The framers "arms" while not "assault" style as we know them today, were arguably far more "assault" style at the time than was the sword.
So yeah, I think it's come up before.
Yes, it's a debate that's comes around every time the media spreads a shooting across the headlines and around the clock on the "boob tube".
And what many forget, it's not the guns (or swords).....it's the lunatics operating them.
With this nanny state logic, we better ban fertilizer and diesel fuel, because Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people, and injured over 800 others with the two.
But let's just say we ban assault rifles tomorrow, what do we do with the ones already out their?
Also, don't you think that we wouldn't also just create another lucrative criminal element who'd bring them in from elsewhere? How's that war on drugs going?
Interesting, I see no practical use for cigarettes, and while I'd personally love to see them banned, I don't believe my personal dislike for them should prevent someone who enjoys them to stop enjoying them.
BTW, I think you might find that cigarettes kill more Americans annually than firearms domestically, but that just may be for a whole other thread.
My point was not to defame our mental health workers, but to merely point out that once again, it's not the profession or instrument, but simply the individual that is to blame for the actions.
Here's an "individual" who we're sending our mental health patients to, who's a mental "nut job" himself......and he killed almost as many trained military personnel and wounded many more, without the "assault" rifle, that is the belief that if removed, these "mass shootings" will somehow decrease in severity.
While I wish it were different, I just don't see it happening......