There’s nothing you can legally do about someone exhibiting strange behavior until that behavior crosses the line and he actually DOES something dangerous to himself or others.
That’s the law. We don’t lock people up pre-emptively. It’s the price we pay for a free society.
Again, there was nothing the university or law enforcement could do, even if they were keeping an eye on him. It’s not against the law to be strange.
Don't make excuses....we've seen that with the college coaches, haven't we?
I agree with you so take the rest of my comments only as adding to the conversation.
We do not want to cross a line where everyone that looks funny is arrested or brought in for questioning. In this case, however, it seems something else needed to be done. What that is without infringing on the liberties your rightly point out I don't know.
Any ideas? Again, you have sounded a bold and needed reminder of the cost to freedom by overreaching.
Yup, that's correct. We need to be careful about how we go about this. My hope is that we can show that this case, as with Loughner before, shows just how impotent and worthless the psychiatric profession is and that we can use that knowledge to push back their increasing influence over our kids and our lives.
But as a corollary, I don’t care if he’s nuts (obviously) or not. Try, convict and execute.
“There’s nothing you can legally do about someone exhibiting strange behavior until that behavior crosses the line and he actually DOES something dangerous to himself or others.”
I know that in many states - if not most - that’s simply not true. In Washington State, two doctors can swear you’re a present danger to yourself or others and have you put on in-patient watch for 72 hours.
It rarely happens though, because of the potential litigation.
If you are prescribing medications to someone, there is more accountability.
The pills don’t make a personal “normal”. It makes them “pass” as functional in society. He clearly had a malfunction and shot up nearly a half dozen people.