Miss Tequila
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Post by Miss Tequila on Dec 17, 2012 12:58:59 GMT -5
I see many people blaming these mass shootings on failure in our health laws. As it stands now, we cannot lock someone up because we think they might shoot up innocent people. I am not an attorney but don't they have to show a clear and present danger before something can be done?
So what can be done? How could we have stopped this psycho from killing these babies? I am heartless and I am fine with locking someone up if they are showing signs of being homicidal (not actually BEING homicidal) but I doubt the ACLU would allow us to lock people up because they fit the criteria of being crazy ass bastards who could potentially kill people.
We also can't force someone to take medicine. I am all for it but again, I'm sure someone will scream about rights being violated.
So what exactly CAN we do? Where are the laws failing us? Why are these horrible crimes happening more and more often?
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Dec 17, 2012 13:00:05 GMT -5
I don't know what we should do about mental health problems. But, I do think it would be nice if we didn't have 4 dozen boards under one umbrella so we could all share our thoughts in one place.
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Miss Tequila
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Post by Miss Tequila on Dec 17, 2012 13:01:05 GMT -5
I don't know what we should do about mental health problems. But, I do think it would be nice if we didn't have 4 dozen boards under one umbrella so we could all share our thoughts in one place. What? the only board that counts is YM OT!
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Colleenz
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Post by Colleenz on Dec 17, 2012 13:01:29 GMT -5
I was listening to NPR talk about this. The psychologist said that for every psycho that does something like this, there are a thousand more that never snap. There was no way to know which ones would do the horrible act until after the fact.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Dec 17, 2012 13:03:06 GMT -5
Can't we just use Pre-cogs?
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973beachbum
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Post by 973beachbum on Dec 17, 2012 13:05:32 GMT -5
Is it too soon to make a joke here? I'm serious BTW.
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The Captain
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Post by The Captain on Dec 17, 2012 13:09:40 GMT -5
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Miss Tequila
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Post by Miss Tequila on Dec 17, 2012 13:15:59 GMT -5
When I read that story I was heartbroken and pissed off at the same time. As a mom, my heart breaks for what she is going through with her 13 year old. But also as a mom, the fact that she puts her 7 and 9 year old at risk pisses me off. To actually have a safety plan in place where they run and lock themselves in a car is freaking ridiculous. If her story is true (I never believe these blogs) then I think CPS needs to step in to ensure (shit, is it ensure or insure? don't want the grammar nazis on my ass!) the safety of her other two children.
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Miss Tequila
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Post by Miss Tequila on Dec 17, 2012 13:16:38 GMT -5
Can't we just use Pre-cogs? I'm such an accountant....I have no idea what Pre-Cogs is but keep thinking it relates to Cost of Goods Sold...sigh
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Dec 17, 2012 13:19:08 GMT -5
I don't know the whole story, but several months ago (maybe a whole year??) a couple I know put their son in a facility. I know there was a time period where some of the family lived outside the family home, and the ones that stayed in the home slept behind a locked door with a security alarm on it. This was while they were waiting for facility availablility. I haven't asked recently what is going on. We aren't close, and that isn't something I can drop into a casual conversation. "Hey, how was your Christmas? Do you still believe your son is a danger to the family?"
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swamp
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Post by swamp on Dec 17, 2012 13:19:48 GMT -5
I have no idea. For every person who commits an atrocity like Adam Lanza, there are probably 10,000 mentally I'll people who don't.
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Miss Tequila
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Post by Miss Tequila on Dec 17, 2012 13:23:09 GMT -5
I have no idea. For every person who commits an atrocity like Adam Lanza, there are probably 10,000 mentally I'll people who don't. I agree. But over the last two days I have seen FB post after FB post blaming our mental health laws for this tragedy. So I am really interested in what they should be. I am obviously not liberal in my views and have no problem shattering someone's rights if it saves innocent people, but I don't believe the majority of our country agrees with me (or they would have voted with me last time!lol). I honestly do not know what we can do as a country to prevent this. How do we intitutionalize people who haven't actually committed a crime?
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Waffle
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Post by Waffle on Dec 17, 2012 13:23:46 GMT -5
Is it too soon to make a joke here? I'm serious BTW. YES, it is way too soon.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Dec 17, 2012 13:25:41 GMT -5
The joke was about mental illness. That isn't a new topic.
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Ava
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Post by Ava on Dec 17, 2012 13:25:58 GMT -5
I think there's very little we can do, unfortunately. Living in a free society means there are certain risks we have to take. This is one of them. I don't think putting armed guards in schools will help one bit. I would gladly pay more taxes if that meant children would be safe. But that is not the solution. We cannot lock people up because of their psychological make-up. The only thing I can think of is gun control. Sure, a person determined to kill will find a way. But limit the number of arms available. A small pistol to defend yourself if someone invades your home should be allowed, but that's about it. There's no reason why a civilian should have in their home enough arms for a small squadron. That kind of weaponry is only good to kill a large number of people in a very short period of time.
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973beachbum
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Post by 973beachbum on Dec 17, 2012 13:26:07 GMT -5
I have no idea. For every person who commits an atrocity like Adam Lanza, there are probably 10,000 mentally I'll people who don't. I agree. But over the last two days I have seen FB post after FB post blaming our mental health laws for this tragedy. So I am really interested in what they should be. I am obviously not liberal in my views and have no problem shattering someone's rights if it saves innocent people, but I don't believe the majority of our country agrees with me (or they would have voted with me last time!lol). I honestly do not know what we can do as a country to prevent this. How do we intitutionalize people who haven't actually committed a crime? Will you still feel the same way when it is you people want to commit?
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973beachbum
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Post by 973beachbum on Dec 17, 2012 13:27:17 GMT -5
The joke was about mental illness. That isn't a new topic. My joke wasn't even about that just about a fellow poster.
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Miss Tequila
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Post by Miss Tequila on Dec 17, 2012 13:29:44 GMT -5
I agree. But over the last two days I have seen FB post after FB post blaming our mental health laws for this tragedy. So I am really interested in what they should be. I am obviously not liberal in my views and have no problem shattering someone's rights if it saves innocent people, but I don't believe the majority of our country agrees with me (or they would have voted with me last time!lol). I honestly do not know what we can do as a country to prevent this. How do we intitutionalize people who haven't actually committed a crime? Will you still feel the same way when it is you people want to commit? But I show no signs of mental instability...ok, maybe i do but not the kind that makes you think I'm going to go blow people away! I am not trying to start an argument here but the majority of posts blaming mental health laws were from my friends that I know are liberal. So I am asking honestly, if we can't trample on people's rights (force medication, institutionalize those that we think can be a danger, etc) what exactly are we to do? We can all the money we want into the mental heatlh system, but we can't force people to take meds or lock someone up BEFORE they commit a crime.
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kgb18
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Post by kgb18 on Dec 17, 2012 13:31:36 GMT -5
We need a few things in regards to mental health in this country, IMHO:
1) Improve access to mental health help/treatment.
2) Create special mental health courts for people who have mental health problems and have committed a crime.
3) We need to do more for children with mental health illness and for their parents.
4) Encourage people to report someone when they see signs of someone having a mental break. In so many of these cases we can look back and see that there were all kinds of signs something was terribly wrong, and yet no one reported it. We've reached the point where we can't just dismiss someone making threats, acting out, changing their behavior, etc.
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weltschmerz
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Post by weltschmerz on Dec 17, 2012 13:32:19 GMT -5
I am obviously not liberal in my views and have no problem shattering someone's rights if it saves innocent people, but I don't believe the majority of our country agrees with me --------------- How do you feel about people who have no problem shattering your rights if it saves innocent people? Like the right to bear arms?
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Ava
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Post by Ava on Dec 17, 2012 13:33:16 GMT -5
No, we cannot institutionalize people who haven't committed a crime. Forcing medication on someone who really needs it to function in our society is a different matter. They should take it if they need it.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Dec 17, 2012 13:33:38 GMT -5
Are there best practices from around the world that seem to be working elsewhere?
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giramomma
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Post by giramomma on Dec 17, 2012 13:34:51 GMT -5
I have no idea. For every person who commits an atrocity like Adam Lanza, there are probably 10,000 mentally I'll people who don't. That's true. But, just because a mentally ill person doesn't kill someone doesn't mean they aren't harmful. My grandparents were dysfunctional and abusive. One of my parents has a likely personality disorder and untreated depression . The other parent is completely codependent/enmeshed. I grew up to be in a very codependent relationship with my folks. Thought that was so normal that I unknowingly married an addict. Three generations are affected with this sh*t. We didn't haul off and kill anyone, but there were lots of poor coping mechanisms being displayed by us all. A couple of us are/were self-injurers. The nice thing was that everyone hid everything really, really well. No one would have believed me if I would have told them how bad my home life could get growing up. My nuclear family and I put up a good front to fool everyone. For my folks, growing up in time where there was no mandatory reporting and wearing long sleeves even in the summer did the trick. Oh, and my parents HAD access to mental health providers. But, you know, only the weak go see doctors of any kind (shrinks, family practitioners, etc.) You pulled yourself up by your bootstraps to get through life. ETA Again: I was able to navigate our mental health system relatively easily, starting with resources for free at my college. I was then able to work with an office, to see someone so that the treatment wouldn't show up on my parent's insurance. Sure, not every small town of 5K or less is going to have a local chapter of NAMI ready to help, but in some respects, with the internet and phone conferencing, help is more accessible than before. I'm sure in the 70's, if you would have told some 12 stepper folks that they'd be able to have meetings online and on the phone, they'd think you were a little nuts. But, here we are with that technology and capability. You can't force folks to want to make things better. Laws can't make a person want to fundamentally change.
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Miss Tequila
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Post by Miss Tequila on Dec 17, 2012 13:35:45 GMT -5
I am obviously not liberal in my views and have no problem shattering someone's rights if it saves innocent people, but I don't believe the majority of our country agrees with me --------------- How do you feel about people who have no problem shattering your rights if it saves innocent people? Like the right to bear arms? the debate is whether or not taking away my right to bear arms would save lives or not.
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Miss Tequila
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Post by Miss Tequila on Dec 17, 2012 13:37:01 GMT -5
Are there best practices from around the world that seem to be working elsewhere? I'm not sure that would even help. There are crazy people everywhere but it seems like it is only the US that continues to deal with this horrific events. Is there something in our culture? Something in the way we are raising our children?
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tloonya
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Post by tloonya on Dec 17, 2012 13:38:26 GMT -5
I know family where son returned from jail and keeping them being scared for their lives every day! So he did commit a crime, went to jail, came back and no one knows whats next. However he is not mentally ill, just a very scary dude. So we have to add former convicts to the pot of mentally ill... Huge pot we are facing here... Really, what to do? I was just having a conversation with DD and she said she went to HS and they had gotten in really without anyone checking. And I said, listen, we can't start checking everyone at every supermarket and every public place we are going to. And after saying that I had realized that it is just matter of luck. If nothing had happened - it was a lucky day. And seriously, tragedies are happening but out of 365 days a week - 360 are safe! I think I had just used swamp's example: For every person who commits an atrocity like Adam Lanza, there are probably 10,000 mentally I'll people who don't.
So should we continue like 'out of millions of children 99.9% are still alive' or out of all parents in USA 99.9% got their kids back...
It is all generalizations but everyone personal grief is...personal! And those people don't care today about 99.9% of others...
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Ava
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Post by Ava on Dec 17, 2012 13:39:02 GMT -5
I am convinced limiting access to arms will save lives. There's so much damage you can do with a small pistol before five or six big guys physically dominate you. If, on the other hand, you are armed with war weapons, you'll kill dozens of people in minutes.
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swamp
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Post by swamp on Dec 17, 2012 13:39:32 GMT -5
I have no idea. For every person who commits an atrocity like Adam Lanza, there are probably 10,000 mentally I'll people who don't. I agree. But over the last two days I have seen FB post after FB post blaming our mental health laws for this tragedy. So I am really interested in what they should be. I am obviously not liberal in my views and have no problem shattering someone's rights if it saves innocent people, but I don't believe the majority of our country agrees with me (or they would have voted with me last time!lol). I honestly do not know what we can do as a country to prevent this. How do we intitutionalize people who haven't actually committed a crime? I deal with the mentally ill through work since they seem to get arrested for nuisance stuff. Maybe lower the,standard so that if they are deemed to be a danger to the public peace they can be held?
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tloonya
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Post by tloonya on Dec 17, 2012 13:42:19 GMT -5
Commiting people will solve nothing. It will take one escape from facility and we are back to square 1.
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kgb18
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Post by kgb18 on Dec 17, 2012 13:43:51 GMT -5
There's never going to be a perfect solution, but if someone is showing violent tendencies, you can have them involuntarily committed. At that point it at least gets them on paper and on the radar.
People already in the criminal system can be ordered to undergo psychological care and treatment.
There is a huge problem with mental illness and crime in this country beyond the horrific things we see like last week. Our jails and prisons are grappling with what to do with these people. I wrote a story about this problem last year. Some stats I used:
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