Based on his calls to police earlier about hearing voices and being followed sounds like it might've been paranoid schizophrenia. Can cops have someone committed for an evaluation, or is that only friends and family?

More recent reports indicate that the shooter used a dreaded pump action assault shotgun (in addition to handguns, possibly picked up from victims). Technology from the 1890s does not belong on our streets!

Edit: and before anyone complains about the maxim machine gun (of 1890 vintage): while lethal, it lacks that certain element of mobility necessary for the modern mass shooting, coming in at 140 pounds with carriage.

[quote="simple schoolboy Can cops have someone committed for an evaluation

[/quote]


Whoa. Easy there. You're treading in Orwellian territory. But I think they do if they have someone in custody. A court order maybe? But fuck it. They should be able to anytime.

I'm not saying they should necessarily. Just curious how one can go about getting an obviously crazy person some sort of psychiatric assistance. My understanding is that family members can fairly easily get someone committed for a 72 hour evaluation. What other provisions are there?

As much as it pains me to say it, I think this is a losing battle all around. If you leave it to family or friend to committ someone, you're then putting the responsbility on someone to make a tough decision that they're not sure about. No one wants to admit that their spouse, or son, or whoever might be crazy. You see these sad stories all the time where the family member says, "I knew he had some problems, but I never thought..." I'll have to recheck my facts, but I believe the mother of the Newtown shooter (who was also killed) was taking steps to committ her son. Well, that might have been what sent the young guy over the edge. What I'm sayng is, it will also take a willful effort from the said patient to seek help and get better.

Provisions from the outside? Take any work place. Is every work place going to want every employee to seek a mental health evaluation if he/she is showing signs of depression, mood swings? An employee could sue for discrimination. On top of that, let's say every employee does follow through with a mental health evaluation, where is all the money coming from to pay for it?

If some school counselor came across someone like the Aurora shooter, I think they should be obligated to tell authorities if they deem it necessary. And while the authorities technically can't do anything about it, the said person would at least be under close watch. And what about patient/doctor confidentiality? I'm not familiar with its paper work. If a psychiatrist feels someone is obviously insane, can they do anything about it without being sued?

But again, what a mess. Are we really going to target every troubled man or woman? There are millions. I was very depressed for two years in college, anti-social, shy, I fit the mold. But I still had a stable head on my shoulders. I don't know. Things could get messy.

Regardless, people will continue to be fucking nuts and you can't stop them all.

Stronger background checks. I'm all for it. Goddamn NRA lobbyists getting in the way.

The NRA is smart in that sense, they saw what happened when the abortion absolutists gave ground and won't make the same mistake until their membership overwhelmingly forces change. I think we are beginning to see that change in worker's unions, the shift to a more pragmatic approach given the changing situation in the country, and I hope the NRA will follow suit.

My wife is a school social worker. She can share relevant things about students with other members of the team (relevant being the key word - it's certainly not everything). Outside of the team (including law enforcement, if necessary), she can only share information if students want to hurt themselves, others, or if they are being hurt. If the student is just disturbed or mentally ill, but not expressing thoughts of harm, her hands are tied and she could lose her license if she said something to someone.

I know it gets tricky with minors, though. If I recall correctly, the forms that parents have to sign in order for the kid to receive counseling also give the kid some rights to privacy from the parents, but in certain situations it may not.

Waiting periods are not really bad ideas.

There are so many weapons easily available in this country, all any rule is going to do is effect mostly law abiding people, but the waiting period does allow for a cooling off period.

It is pretty obvious that virtually if not all mass shooters are mentally disturbed.

I'm not sure how stronger background checks would have applied in this case. Its sounds like he bought his shotgun through a dealer, which would've had to include a background check. Apparently nothing in his background was in the system (no convictions for his previous shootings, no determination of diminished status capacity).

Whatever disease or "evil" that pervades a country like America is rendered in what Harold Bloom would call our "crazy gun culture". This is not so much to do with gun owners & NRA as it has to do with the act of violence itself, using a gun. And you can find this kind of action in our popular culture & folklore (the old west).

Take a look at a case like Charles Starkweather. He didn't have video games in the 1950s, but he had violent comic books and western films. He was so consumed by popular culture that he tried to personify James Dean. He thought of himself as that rebel who lived on the margins of society. Criminologists have discussed Starkweather and said that he imagined himself as a cowboy in the movies, trail blazing his way with a gun.

Dime store novels with Jesse James the Outlaw, Dick Tracy, 1920s gangsters, modern gangs in Chicago etc. Popular culture in America is obsessed with violence. I personally don't have a problem with viewing the material, because I can make the distinction between right & wrong. Most of us can. The movies, television & entertainment is just an outlet to take part in these fantasies. But then there are the select few who hit that void. They're just as obsessed with violence as we are, only their fantasies are carried over into real life.

I heard that specialist at the hospital in Washington yesterday refer to the "evil" that's in our society. Well, that evil has been with us a long time. Probably since the Old West and the fascination that's sustained it for so many years. And that's partly of what "Blood Meridian" is about. Read it! Good book!

That "evil" is guns. She's used that one before. Though given her profession and experience, she is probably better at judge of that evil than we are.

Frankly, haters gonna hate but this pretty much kills the debate: http://www.examiner.com/article/harvard ... save-lives

Are you serious?

It's not a "Harvard study". It's written in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy - a conservative Law Review edited by right-wing Harvard Law students that doesn't undergo peer review like a proper scientific study. It's embarrassing as it doesnt even understand basic statistical analysis. Furthermore it is factually wrong and contains incorrect data in several places. This "study" would never have made it through a peer review.

It's not just that they don't understand how to conduct a study they get basic facts wrong. Not just slightly - egregiously. One of the touted statistics is that Luxembourg has a homicide rate of 9.01/100 K. Only it doesn't... it has a rate of 0.9/100K. Yet that incorrect statistic was one that most downstream media picked up and quoted without fact checking. The "study" is an embarrassment.

If you want actual peer-reviewed Harvard studies on gun violence, (I'm sure you won't as they mostly come to the opposite conclusion than this "debate killer")....

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/firearms-research/

Oh well,always good to be corrected. But yeah, there are plenty of places where guns are allowed and are pretty safe, there are plenty of place where they are forbidden and those placesare from safe (like where i live).

Comparing gun violence in the US to anywhere else just doesn't work. The US is exceptional: the legacy of slavery, the protestant ethos, the class divide, the level of ethnic diversity, the geographic diversity/separation, amongst other factors. No other country is even close in it's it history and make up.

So, has anyone proposed federally taxing the shit out of modern sporting rifles or something like what they do with class 3 stuff?

Sort of like they have done with tobacco?

I'm sure someone has. You can try to define it as any semi automatic rifle that accepts detachable magazines (as California intends to do). That sort of scheme could potentially work in a state such as California in which all arms are registered.

Similarly, all class III arms have been registered with the feds since something like 1986. the $200 tax stamp isn't so much the disincentive as is having a gun that you don't have certain knowledge has been blessed by the state. There are provisions for more recently manufactured automatic weapons existing for dealers as samples or show pieces, but they cannot be transferred to individuals.

Ah, thanks for the knowledge.

2 Concealed Carry Holders Kill Each Other In Road Rage Incident

Two men are dead after pulling guns on each other during a road rage incident on Wednesday night.

Police said the dispute began when one car was tailgating another in the Michigan town of Ionia, population 11,400.

Both drivers pulled into the parking lot of a local car wash and stepped out of their vehicles, according to ABC affiliate WZZM-TV. Witnesses said the tailgating driver fired first, and the other driver returned fire.

When ambulances arrived, the men -- Ionia residents James Pullam, 43, and Robert Taylor, 56 -- were given medical care and transported to a local hospital, where they were pronounced dead, Detroit News reported.

Both men fired handguns and had valid licenses to carry concealed weapons, according to authorities, Detroit News said.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/1 ... 56491.html

Perhaps if one of those men had been carrying two guns they might both be alive today

Heh. Cute. In this case, it sounds like potentially no one was the victim as two involved in a road rage incident decided to confront each other. Sounds more like a Darwin Award than a call for action. I suppose it would be more civilized if we had allowed them to beat each other to death with tire irons (which mindedly, would've more likely involved only one casualty). I'm not sure if that's much better.