“you can’t just confine people because they have behavior
issues unless those issues rise to the level of crime.”
Of course. But I think you misunderstood what I was saying.
If someone needs urgent medical attention and is unconscious would you
(a) leave them on the sidewalk till they’ve given their informed consent for you to call an ambulance, or
(b) walk on by?
Mental health issues don’t just appear out of nowhere. In most cases there are signs and symptoms. If those are acted upon by those who can see them, then mental disturbances can be treated medically, through counselling, and so on.
Is it not the case that people can be taken to a psychiatric hospital if people are sufficiently worried about their mental state? Or do you object to that on the basis that they’ve actually got to do something that’s certifiably insane - like go on a killing spree - before anyone tries to help them?
A schizo not getting treatment and then gunning down a bunch of people before being locked up for decades or sent to death row costs society a whole lot more than a schizo getting treatment to manage their condition. Nobody’s freedom is impinged. Fewer people would die from it as well. And no gun control would be required.
Its a very slippery slope to embark upon depriving free citizen of their liberty on the sayso of a medical professional. I would like to believe that only legitimately
threatening people get deprived of their liberty in this way.
But in practice, governments have been known to adjudge all manner of inconvenient behavior as ‘threatening’ and therefore worthy of confinement in a facility.
I am saddened by the loss of life, and wish that other adults in the man’s life had been more careful in storing their firearms. But I’m not reading anything in the news that suggests he did anything that rises to the level of
a threat to violence that could be articulated to a judge
and a warrant for arrest issued.
This may be the price of being free, to allow the nutters
to circulate freely. I would not trade freedom from being possibly arbitrarily confined because someone else thinks I’m nuts, for security. That test needs to meet a high bar.