We are in what the British fondly call a "sticky Wicket" regarding mental illness.
We must keep in mind that the person has what it know as a disease. A disease of the mind that in many cases can be treated successfully.
Granted, there is certainly a public safety issue. But how do you balance that with a persons rights. How do you force a person to seek medical care without damaging or inhibiting a persons desire to seek care voluntarily?
If we place a huge scarlet letter on everyone who exhibits or incurs some sort of psychological problem during his or her lifetime, we will push all of these people, and there are millions who would qualify, into a state of fear and apprehension. They would be forced to keep the problem a closely held secret and never seek help, for fear of being exposed and labeled as a danger to society. MILLIONS OF PEOPLE.
So there is the problem in a nutshell and why the current system relies largely on the voluntary nature of seeking medical care on your own.
Is there a happy and efficient middle ground?
Maybe....But it is a delicate balancing act.
Not a single person on the planet wants to be labeled with a crazy tag. Millions seek help on their own for depression and the related psychological problems, some of which obviously plagued this shooter. I believe that because of his ethnic heritage and Asian ways, he would never have sought help. Not in a million years, because of the stigma.
I think the best thing we can do as a free society and one that wants to remain free, is to do more to remove the stigma, and not make it worse.
But that's just me.
If we place a huge scarlet letter on everyone who exhibits or incurs some sort of psychological problem during his or her lifetime
As I understand it, that would include 100% of the population at some time or other in their lives! Aren't we all just a bit what they used to call "neurotic"?
Millions seek help on their own for depression and the related psychological problems, some of which obviously plagued this shooter.
Not to pick on you, but this guy clearly had a lot more going on than depression. Maybe schizophrenic? I just worry that people will start seeing a mass murderer inside every person who is or ever has been depressed. And that would truly be a sad thing!
That said, the vast majority of people who suffer from schizophrenia are not dangerous. The two people I have known that had it were sweet as pie and have never been in the least bit violent.
I think the best thing we can do as a free society and one that wants to remain free, is to do more to remove the stigma, and not make it worse.
Amen. The more I learn about mental illness, the more I can say "there but for the Grace of God go I". These people really cannot help what their dysfunctional brain chemistry is doing to them, anymore than people with MS or Parkinson's or pick-any-disease can help what their illness does to them.
It seems to me we have two different tacks of discussion here.
One is about how the LAW treats those deemed mentally ill.
But the other addresses how school officials should deal with disruptive, mentally ill, scary students (or teachers, for that matter). I think we’ve reached the point where school officials MUST be given the option to expel a student...especially after a judge ruled him “a danger to himself and others”. If we’re going to make them responsible for student safety, we must also agree to back them up and not second guess their decisions.