Posted on 01/12/2013 7:16:23 AM PST by Tailgunner Joe
Mental-health professionals, not more guns, are the way to address school violence, Sen. Al Franken said on Wednesday.
The Minnesota Democrat, in Duluth to announce legislation related to mental health, said he hasn’t seen support for proposals to arm teachers or place armed guards in schools.
“In the discussion that I’ve had with Minnesota teachers and school officials, they don’t think that’s the solution,” Franken said after a news conference at the Federal Building in Duluth. “There’s agreement in the educational community in Minnesota … that we need more counselors, and we need more mental-health professionals in our schools.”
The Dec. 14 slaying of 26 people, including 20 children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., has reawakened discussion about school safety. The National Rifle Association proposed placing armed guards in schools. In Minnesota, state Rep. Tony Cornish, R-Vernon Center, said he’ll introduce a bill to allow teachers to carry weapons.
Franken, who met with school officials in Eagan on Monday, said addressing mental-health issues early would be a better investment.
The earlier mental-health issues are addressed, the less likely they’ll be to result in violent
behavior later on, Franken said. But Minnesota lags in providing counselors, he said. The state’s high schools have one mental-health counselor for every 780 students, ranking 48th in the country in that category, he said.
The legislation Franken announced on Wednesday deals with mental-health issues when they lead to criminal behavior. Co-authored with U.S. Rep. Richard Nugent, R-Fla., the legislation would:
Authorize investment in veterans treatment courts, which serve arrested veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress, substance addiction and other mental-health conditions.
Support police academies including curricula on mental-health issues.
Extend the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act, first passed in 2004, for another five years, continuing federal support for mental-health courts and crisis intervention teams.
Franken said the bill is an attempt to favor treatment rather than incarceration for those who are mentally ill. He cited an estimate by Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek that up to 30 percent of inmates in county jails have mental illnesses.
“Of course, we want to put people who are violent in prison,” Franken said. But treatment is more effective and less costly than prison for the mentally ill who are nonviolent, he said.
ObamaCare will play a big part in determining who is mentally prohibited from owning guns.
Psychiatric records have even more strigent privacy rules. I am a Family Physician and I get no records sent on my own patients about their treatment etc. from psychiatrists etc. I is like puling teeth to get even their diagnosis. But, guess whose office they show up in when they are in crisis. Mine !!! I have to call the police sometimes cause they are psychotic. Have had it happen 2 days after discharge from Psych hospital.
>>How about mental health exams for politicians?
Keeping mental cases out of elected office would save more lives than every kind of gun control imaginable.<<
Best post of the day.
The Left is pretty good about playing both ends of a crisis:
We don’t have to put “armed guards in schools”, which was STUPID for the NRA to suggest, or even arm and train teachers. All we have to do is LET THOSE WHO WANT TO CARRY, CARRY. This is as simple as repealing the Gun Free School Zones Act.
I know dozens of retired peace officers that would volunteer to patrol the school area one day a week and keep the peace.
Worth repeating. While Franken is asking for more counselors what we will end up with is less counseling (at $100 an hour) and more pills ($10 a month for the generic stuff). Pills without proper supervision are much more dangerous than no treatment at all.
Not to mention this is all part of the ongoing effort to turn American into pill popping zombies who vote only for more pills. It is fair to say that such people (I know a bunch of them) gave Obama his margin of victory here in Virginia.
I can only assume that members of Congress are exempt. If not, we might be seeing quite a few of them leaving office.
Most gun murders are drug/gang related. Most mass shootings are psychotropic drug related. More people die from RX drug overdoses each year than from murder by firearm. Given all these facts the wizards of smart in Washington DC want to restrict the Constitutional rights of law abiding citizens. Does anyone doubt for a moment that if they succeed in destroying the 2nd Amendment they will immediately come after the 1st, starting with restrictions on the internet?
The titles and summaries of Dem bills always sound good. The problem resides in what is buried within and the riders attached.
Trust him and his bill? No.
(at least not until they pass it so they can find out what is in it)
I get it. It’s the DemoRat mental health decade.
Yes, and they can immediately trash the 4th by stopping cats to look for illegal gun traffickers. The 5th will go after that when they expand New York v. Quarles to include any government records of guns, ammo, parts, or anything related.
I should have said stopping cars. But there was a cat lying on top of me and I mistyped.
Takes one to know one!
As the sister of a violent schizophrenic who wasn’t put in the psyche ward until after he killed someone, I can say that anything that makes it easier to identify and commit violently mentally ill people to a secure treatment facility would be a good thing.
Also, as a general crime fighting matter, our culture would do well to really know our neighbors.
Ya, lets have every politician checked out for mental competency also!
More counselors in schools = More targets for nut cases
People have bodyguards with guns in order to protect them from some crazy person getting them. Crazy is the keyword and the main part of the problem that should be addressed.
In my opinion, the mental health issues manifest in DC amongst the political Royalty who are delusional and think they’re Gods.
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