DEFINE LIBERAL

[cannongal]

I don't understand your contention that lack of proper mental health treatment in this country is a topic which is ignored, cannongal.

My observation is opposite, not only at Mock but whenever the topics of crimes committed by apparently mentally unbalanced people and prison overcrowding are discussed.

Mental health policy failures have been discussed at length here and elsewhere in relation to gun control. Part of gun control policy is keeping firearms out of the hands of felons and mentally unstable individuals. Unfortunately, it's often difficult to monitor and enforce the existing restrictions and laws (which is also frequently part of the discussion).

Mental health and gun control discussions are not mutually exclusive when it comes to crime. You can focus on the mental health problem and someone else can focus on the gun-accessibility problem without having to deny that, many times, both are contributors that need to be addressed.

Anyway, I don't think MS or anyone else justifiably lamenting that another asshole used a gun, this time to end the lives of 9 people in a church, implies ignorance in regards to the possible mental health tie-in.

I never said MS was ignorant, I said he was arrogant. There's a big difference between not knowing anything, and thinking you know everything.


My contention with the mental health system comes from experience. A few years back, my step son (24 at the time) started going to into rages, the kid would start a fight with anyone and every one, and it eventually landed him in jail for 30 days.
The county jail shrink tagged him as bi-polar and started him on a drug regimen.

When they released him, they released him into the world with no meds, no referral to an outside shrink, and no warning to the person he beat up (the one that testified against him in court).

He didn't have medical insurance, so I brought him to the free clinic, to see if we could at least get him back on the meds. The clinic said they had to do their own evaluation, and that the booking time was four months out.

Do you want to know what happened before that 4 months was up? He stole my car and totaled it, beat some bouncer at a bar so badly he was in ICU for a week, and got himself arrested 6 times before landing in Jail for a year.

I've known the kid for 15 years, and he'd never shown signs of aggression or blackouts before, but for some reason, almost like a light swich-something switched in his brain at 24.

It could have been drugs that started it, I don't know, but when I tried to get some help for the kid, I was told it'd be 4 months before they could even see him.

That's why I say we need to do something about mental health in this country. Granted, it's much easier to arrest the crazy person, and take him off the streets for a few days, but then they release them back into the same hopeless situation.