Virginia vs. Iraq

[wendybeth]

Great post and point, Matt.

[Alex]

I don't see how that would have prevented this case, though. Short of forced commitment and treatment (which we got rid of 25 years ago), which, without the clarity of hindsight would have been pretty sketchy.

[wendybeth]

I can't speak for other areas, but ours has been hard hit by mental health cuts. Between the cuts that not only limit but actually prohibit help, and the HEPA laws, etc, the lunatics are running the show. I know whereof I speak here- my mother is off the charts and we can't do **** about it, even though she tried to kill someone in a nursing home a while back. We can't make her take her meds or live in a decent place, and finally we had to distance ourselves or go nuts along with her. The professor, I think her name is Roy, expressed disbelief at the impotency the system had with this obvious time bomb, and I share her frustration.

[blueerica]

I wonder how far mental resources can go in a situation like this. A person has a choice to take part in treatments. Outside of that, they would have to be declared mentally incompetent to keep them there, or imprisoned. I haven't kept up to date with the ridiculous over-coverage (IMO), but from what was apparent before, I'm not sure it was enough to have gotten the courts into action to force him into some sort of mental institution. Questions and concerns aren't usually enough to make that kind of thing happen, right?

He was 23, after all.

[Alex]

Not in Virigina. Virginia requires the person be an imminent threat to for a commitment and evaluation. In other words, they would have had to catch him on the way to the lecture hall with the guns and an clear intent to start shooting people.

Other states have somewhat lower threshholds but it isn't clear to me that he would have met any state's requirements for forced commitment.

[scaeagles]

THe Supreme Court case Castle Rock vs Gonzales has basically said that we have no specific right to police protection even though we pay for it. It is a general thing, not a specific thing. The gist of that case was a woman had a restraining order against her estranged husband and the police failed to protect her. Either she or her family tried to sue the police department for failing to do their job (I can't recall the exact details), and it was ruled that the police is not a private security force.

My point is that even though we pay taxes for said "protection", we cannot rely on it nor expect it to be there when needed.

What would the difference be between a trained and armed professer carrying a weapon and security officer with a weapon? Not mandatory, of course, but voluntary. I don't see the insanity, personally. Obviously being a "gun free zone" didn't help those 30+ people at VA Tech.

However, as Alex said, there will never be anything close to agreement on this. In an earlier post I said that Americans might feel like they can do something about situations like this, but I don't think there is anything that can be done. Bad people are bad people. Disturbed people are disturbed people. It is not possible for laws or restrictions to stop all bad or disturbed people who wish to do harm.

[Strangler Lewis]

We can't eliminate all risk, so the question has to be what risks do we accept and what kind of a society do we want to become to eliminate certain risks? Personally, I can't equate concealed carry with other forms of risk management such as auto insurance because you simply cannot forget that you have that gun and go on with your life.

Yesterday I was in line behind a police officer at Peets. I gave him a wide berth, and I stopped my four year old from running around. Personally, I don't want to have to worry that if somebody bumps me in the coffee line, they're going for my gun, and I don't want to live with the operating assumption that life threatening violence can happen around every corner in a good neighborhood the same way I live with the assumption that car accidents can happen.

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by Strangler Lewis

We can't eliminate all risk, so the question has to be what risks do we accept and what kind of a society do we want to become to eliminate certain risks?

Exactly. Individually, we all make different choices as to the risks we are willing to take. Some enjoy recreation drugs, but there are risks involved and I have never been one to want to take those risks. Even though I am a staunch gun rights advocate, I do not possess a firearm because I have not taken the time to get the training I feel necessary to be a responsible gun owner.

But I like to jump out of airplanes. Go figure.

So we get back to what is deemed best for society. There are a lot of screwed up laws and regulations that are deemed best for society, and everyone here would agree with that I'm sure, but not on which laws and regulations fit that description.

[Strangler Lewis]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

Even though I am a staunch gun rights advocate, I do not possess a firearm because I have not taken the time to get the training I feel necessary to be a responsible gun owner.

While such statements partake of restraint, I do wonder how much they actually fetishize firearms to an unhealthy degree. My father always had handguns, which he kept in his sock drawer. As a little kid, I would help my mother fold laundry, and I would put away my dad's socks in the drawer where his guns were. At some point, I assume that I was told "Don't touch these." So I didn't. As I teenager, long after I stopped helping my mother with the laundry, I still went into my dad's sock drawer a lot because that's where he kept his porn. I left the guns alone just as I left the papers in his den alone.

My dad was in WWII, but I'm fairly confident that he never took a course in responsible gun ownership or spent hours practicing to shoot the little girl with the switchblade instead of the masked thug with the flower. He knew where the safety was.

Now, my friend who is the most passionate Second Amendment advocate, hunter, etc. has a number of handguns. He keeps them in a safe by his bedside. This safe has a door that has been customized with the imprint of his right palm so that, supposedly only he can open it. To my mind, spending so much time thinking about guns and devising neat gadgets related to guns and devising courses related to guns only makes guns that more attractive and mysterious to inquisitive young people.

[CoasterMatt]

ah yes, that wonderful "good neighborhood" bullcrap...

If 10 kids get picked off over a weekend in a "bad neighborhood", there's no 'national outcry' or 'deep soul searching'.

Yes, this story is tragic, but it's gonna happen again, and worse - just think, all this guy had was 2 handguns and a whole lotta rage.