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Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Comments

gail

Putting the pro and anti gun stances aside, since there doesn't seem to be a solution to the problem of mad people getting weapons they can carry out their fantasies with (machetes, trucks, poison, flamethrowers, are all possibilities), there are two aspects to consider: security and prevention. After the Columbine killings and some other less well known incidents, American elementary and high schools simply locked down and put guards at the entries. That is more difficult to do on a university campus where students are constantly en route from one building to another, but if people are frightened enough they will eventually find ways to hunker down. On the prevention side, I don't see any likelihood that we will figure out how to make homicidal maniacs any less homicidal or any less mad, but we should make it easier for dangerous persons to be put away somewhere safe where they can do no harm to themselves or others. The mass emptying of the mental institutions and the legal barriers that have been placed in the way of committing dangerous people led, naturally, to lots more dangerous, insane people wandering around loose while their neighbors and potential victims dithered and worried about what to do next.

dearieme

"The mass emptying of the mental institutions..": most comments on that phenomenon that I see attribute it to Thatcher, but it surely started in the 60s, didn't it? Just another "progressive" reform.

pseudonymous

But if I'd been living there permanently, I would have made sure I had a good set of bolts at my disposal.

As I understand your argument, the people who did live there permanently did not feel this necessary.

I think this is exactly the time NOT to have a debate about gun control. Everyone is far too busy saying that events have proven whatever they already belived correct, to have any useful debate about anything.

gail

Dearime, I was thinking of the sixties (since I'm in America, I don't have anti-Thatcherism to fall back on)

Duke

I have an experience as a former violent mental patient. A post is here. But I will tell all of you that short of doing brain scans on every person in America every five years, people like this guy will be around us.

dearieme

Gail, I was musing: sorry if you felt that I'd accused you.

markertoo

You guys are playing right into the hands of the vested interests responsible for this-- the "mental health" industry and Big Pharma. The most common thread in all of the recent school shootings was antidepressats. These drugs have a black box warning on them of increased suicide and violence. It's logic 101. To then give the above industries the power to incarcerate anyone they deem as "unfit" is to take a giant step towards an Orwellian nightmare. This "solution" plays right into their hand. Psychiatry has always been the main tool of oppressive governments, whether it's Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, or modern China. Modern psychiatry was molded in Nazi Germany. It was never intended to help people, only to control them. As history bears out, it didn't even accomplish that.

The solution is to gradually remove these drugs from the market and not allow anyone on them access to firearms. Columbine, Minnesota, the Amish school shootings and now, Virginia Tech,just to name a few all have antidepressants in common! If these drugs are not removed from the market, these shootings will only become a more and more common occurance.

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