Insanity

Tragedy, the outcome of severe mental illness, moral depravity, demonic forces, no words can explain the actions of mass shooting of the most innocent among us.

As I have been reviewing the posts and responses today regarding the horror that unfolded in Connecticut I have noticed that the topic is primarily guns, gun control, second amendment, etc. First, I am proponent of an Americans right to keep and bear arms, I believe this is fundamental to liberty and a basic freedom. I hunt, I shoot for sport, I have been trained and have carried weapons as part of my employment as well I am a veteran of the United States Navy. I am familiar with a variety of weapons.
I have also worked with the severely mentally ill and the criminally insane for the better part of the past ten years.

I truly believe that if we are going to have a serious discussion regarding gun violence then the focus of mental health should be in the forefront. I agree that this tragic event and the tragedies that preceded today are related to guns being in the wrong hands, a no brainer.

A person does not just wake up one day, throw on some body armor, arm themselves to the teeth and run out and commit a massacre. There has to be patterns of behavior, signs that a person is having issues, suicidal ideology, something that offers a clue that there is a problem that requires intervention.

Our right to own guns is not the issue here, the mental health system may be. I can tell you from experience that a person can be reported to police as "acting strange", making homicidal or suicidal statements etc. The police will contact this person, conduct a field interview to determine if the individual needs evaluation and if so bring them to the local emergency room. A petition for mental health evaluation in my state is good for 72 hours, sometimes treatment is hospitalization, other times a patient brought to the hospital under these circumstances can "contract for safety" without ever seeing a psychiatrist, or psychologist.

I have seen people that are clearly delusional released back into the general public because there is nowhere to place them.

There is no funding for properly dealing with the mentally ill. They are left to fight their afflictions on their own. Todays tragic event was gun violence, no doubt about it, however the person with that gun was insane there is no other explanation for the massacre of those most innocent. If there must be discussion regarding gun control so be it, and I really am not trying to fall back on the old "guns dont kill people, people do" thing.This is insanity and there had to be signs of a problem.

My prayers to the victims families and their community.

Education Education Education (who said that?) but it is true.
I too have worked with the mentally ill and funding across the world is way lower than normal medicine despite the fact 1 in 4 of us will suffer from mental illness in our lifetime.
We need to stop the stigma against mentally ill people and educate people on the first signs of mental illness.
A lot of people will not seek help because of the stigma of being "mad".
S&F dude.

I agree, to a degree that mental health today is an issue, however I can tell you with all certainty that law inforcement personel are by and large some of the strongest individuals requiring said mental scrutiny. Neither group or any other for that matter fit into the rat hole that is capable of being "diagnosed" to ascertain mental stability. It is by and large an individual bases for definition to be ascertained.

However the issue of mental stability does not equate to gun control in the slightest as I believe your point is.

But as to there being any other explanations fot such a seamingly random brain fart, there are many other possibilities and to assume it's a random sctizo action is just plain denial of what our government is capable of.