Posted on 02/18/2008 2:19:07 PM PST by neverdem
The quandary: Preventing deadly campus shootings while respecting rights
A week ago, Steven Kazmierczak walked into Tony's Guns & Ammo, a yellow shop in a back yard near the University of Illinois, and bought a Remington shotgun and a 9 mm Glock pistol.
Around the same time, family members noticed that Kazmierczak was acting "erratically," after he had stopped taking prescription medicines for anxiety.
Kazmierczak used his two new guns, and two more he had also purchased legally, to kill five students and himself Thursday in a shooting rampage at Northern Illinois University that leaves policymakers again scrambling to figure out how they can stop the carnage.
In the wake of April's massacre at Virginia Tech, in which a student with a history of mental problems bought guns that he used to kill 32 people and then himself, lawmakers in Washington and across the nation looked for ways to prevent unstable people from getting guns.
It remains unclear exactly what Kazmierczak's mental state was at the time of the shooting, and it is even less certain whether Illinois' new law on reporting mental illness, one of the toughest in the nation, would have made any difference.
But the shootings and the legislative response raise two of the nation's most controversial subjects -- gun control and the rights of the mentally ill -- in a volatile combination, further inflamed by the horror and outrage...
--snip--
When the new state law takes effect June 1, health professionals in Illinois will be required to report to the Department of Human Services any patient "whose mental condition is of such a nature that it is manifested by violent, suicidal, threatening or assaultive behavior" -- the kind of reporting that previously took place only when a person was admitted to a mental health institution...
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
IIRC, withdrawal from the others classes can also be problematic.
time to ban anxiety.
Here's my answer. Make it a law that every law abiding citizen must own a gun and learn to use it. Then sit back and watch the crime rate plummet.
We can lay the blame for school shootings at the feet of:
a. the medical/psychological industry, and
b. the officials who control academic institutions and believe rules will save them from whackos.
TC
These drugs probably kill far more people than the “evil” firearm.
Mark my words.
Soon people voluntarily seeking psychiatric help and are taking antidepressants will be disallowed from buying firearms. Won’t matter if its court ordered or not. Won’t matter if the medical records are currently “private”. After that it will move to any classifiable “mental disorder” including benign things like insomnia.
The recent NRA backed bill is just the first step down that road.
And no I don’t have my tin foil hat on.
Send treats to the troops...
Great because you did it!
www.AnySoldier.com
Be honest.
Lay the BLAME for the murder spree on the GUN CONTROL freaks that leave the INNOCENT DEFENSELESS.
There will always be nuts, on drugs or not, however if you are not permitted to properly defend yourself - you die.
“The actual debate should be over how many teachers, professors, custodians and the like should be required to possess a gun on campus.”
Exactly!
This was another “gun free zone”.
If you wanted to prevent NIU, all they had to do was put his name in the database.
***Here’s my answer. Make it a law that every law abiding citizen must own a gun and learn to use it. Then sit back and watch the crime rate plummet.***
Will there be exceptions for people who object to them?
(I’m not including myself in that group)
I have a better idea , every time a citizen dies due to this stupidity, a politician shall forfeit his/her life as retribution.
That's precisely where the Illinois law is going.
Illinois already bans gun ownership by anyone admitted to a mental hospital. If you're a LEO and an alcoholic, I know that never happens, if you seek inpatient treatment the state will pull your right to own a fdirearm, and lose you job. As a LEO, your union will know how to handle it. As a citizen, you'll need a knowledgeable attorney and a cooperative shrink.
Of course you could simply take a pass on treatment.
Now we'll extend that to drugs. Be careful what the dentist prescribes after pulling your teeth.
BTW, the federal reporting bill you allude to makes perfect sense. If someone is judged a danger to self or others, that should be in the public domain.
I suggest you read my post more carefully.
TC
OOPPPPSSSS!
Sorry about that.
“The current debate is whether to allow guns on campus. The actual debate should be over how many teachers, professors, custodians and the like should be required to possess a gun on campus.”
I didn’t finish reading your answer!
Last night we dined with another family ... and of course this topic came up .... they wanted MORE gun control ... this REALLY PISSES me off ... so I calmly told them
IT WAS A GUN FREE ZONE
LIKE ALL THE OTHER ONES!
How did this STOP this idiot from not killing others?
Idiots don’t respect these “gun free zones”.
Of course they “didn’t know that” and preceded to hail the Hickster ... what a night of SELF CONTROL. All I can say is they were presented with FACTS and what they chose to do with them is anyones guess. People are sooo STUPID, by choice.
Any one hear what drugs he was taking?
“I have a better idea , every time a citizen dies due to this stupidity, a politician shall forfeit his/her life as retribution.”
you have it all wrong, that’s not suffering. let these critters lose all of their properties and benefits, then watch them squirm.
What they mean by “foolproof” is that only the government has any guns. And when that doesn’t work - criminals seem to REFUSE to obey the law, imagine that - they will pretend that the problem is STILL “the ready access to guns”, even though guns are so restricted that the only way to get one is on the black market.
Have there been more and more incidents like this over the last 10 years?
"Yes"
Have gun laws become more or less restrictive over the last 10 years?
"More."
Then doesn't it make sense that more restrictive gun laws have led to more violence?
Correlation isn't causation, but they'll still tie themselves in knots working on that one.
If we had reasonable restrictions on the First Amendment that prohibited the reporting of mass shootings these nut jobs wouldn’t be triggered into copycat type crimes
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