Posted by Tina
Given the instantaneous Diane Feinstein political reaction to the horrible shooting at the Navy Yard in DC a few days ago it was refreshing to read Charles Krauthammer, a voice of experience and authority, who has written of the actual underlying problem and how to address it. Here’s an excerpt; I hope you will read the entire piece:
As was the case in the Tucson shooting — instantly politicized into a gun-control and (fabricated) tea-party-climate-of-violence issue — the origin of this crime lies not in any politically expedient externality but in the nature of the shooter. …
…Had this happened 35 years ago in Boston, Alexis would have been brought to me as the psychiatrist on duty at the emergency room of the Massachusetts General Hospital. Were he as agitated and distressed as in the police report, I probably would have administered an immediate dose of Haldol, the most powerful fast-acting antipsychotic of the time.
This would generally have relieved the hallucinations and delusions, a blessing not only in itself, but also for the lucidity brought on that would have allowed him to give us important diagnostic details — psychiatric history, family history, social history, medical history, etc. If I had thought he could be sufficiently cared for by family or friends to receive regular oral medication, therapy and follow-up, I would have discharged him. Otherwise, I’d have admitted him. And if he refused, I’d have ordered a 14-day involuntary commitment.
The Congress Critters would be wise to listen to the good doctor and then work together to do something positive about mental health laws…if not the Congress then state legislatures need to move!
Dr. Krauthammer concludes: “More than half of those you see sleeping on grates have suffered mental illness. It’s a national scandal. It’s time we recalibrated the pendulum that today allows the mentally ill to die with their rights on — and, rarely but unforgivably, take a dozen innocents with them.”
Amen to that, brother.
As usual, Charles has hit the nail right on the head!
Unfortunately, the gun-grabber’s agenda blinds them to anything resembling reason.
Turns out the vetting process for security clearance could use a bit of tweeking. The Washington Post reports:
Pass the buck is very popular in DC.
SO typical of modern Government. However as bad as all this is, and most likely will continue. We are facing the same incompetence and paper shuffling with like agencies handling Obamacare.
The only question here is how many will lose their lives while waiting on Government bureaucrats to get around to approving their immediate heath care needs.
The “vetting” for security clearance is a JOKE. Diane Feinstein is the biggest defender of the NSA spying on us, bloating our budget and sucking away at the taxpayer trough. She is also the biggest gun grabber of all. I’m not too thrilled with how easy it is for nutcases to buy guns. I come from a gun-loving family of hunters so I am familiar with the gun culture, but I also recognize something has to be done about these mass shootings.
Instead of funding the NSA, why don’t we fund mental health care and care for our Veterans?
But the unhappy fact is that the army’s response to his “instability was to sack him. The poor man took himself to the VA twice, called the cops to report his delusions, and no “treatment” was offered by either of these entities.
What’s more, there is no “security” that will protect you from this kind of thing. Insisting that there is, or could be, is only evading the real issues. We are running a somewhat-less-than nurturing society here.
Well, well, well, Libby we can agree this time! Yes, you are so right the system failed this man! That’s at the heart of this tragedy. The VA failed him, the police failed him. The background company that cleared him and also cleared Snowden for secret clearance failed him. Thats right the same company did Snoweden and the DC shooter. The employer (HOP) who was made aware of his issues also failed him and us!
We’ve seen too many cases where professional people and loved one’s failed the mentally ill and this led to a tragedy. The AZ shooting was 100% preventable with all the warning signs they had. The Sandy Hook shooting should never have happened because it too was easily preventable, starting with the first victim, the mother. What was she thinking, buying guns and training her crazy son to shoot them and then giving him access to them while she slept! There should have been no guns allowed in that house! The law was there for just such situations. The police could have intervened had they taken the threat seriously! Then there was Colorado, the sick person made a last ditch plea for help with a note to his mental health professional and now D.C.
If this is going to get better then there must be accountability for all those who acted negligently and didn’t do their duty.
PS I believe it was the Navy that released this man – then hired him back as a civilian???
Do you know why many of these crazy people are sleeping on the streets? It’s because the ACLU made sure they couldn’t be placed in a mental health program involuntarily. Being crazy isn’t enough to warrant a trip to a mental health hospital, you have to be shown to be an immediate danger to someone or to themselves. Often times that burden is too hard to prove. Thanks to libs and the ACLU we’ve got crazies wandering among us and there’s not a thing we can do about it until its too late.
Libby is half right. the man got no help because way back when we insisted that people like this have rights thus changing the way authorities deal with people like this man.
Dr Krauthammer is a doctor of Psychiatry…he describes what the police and what he actually did before we changed the “thinking” about the complaints this man presented.
The vetters have no business giving security clearance to someone like this. The guidelines for obtaining a clearance absolutely need to be made stronger.
I can’t help wondering if the problem is there are too few Americans who could qualify because we just don’t have the same level of morality and respect we once had. We’ve become a nation of very unserious social media adolescents without a clue.
You know us liberals … navy, marines … it’s all the army. And in all fairness, I expect the psychotic break occurred long after the security clearance.
Libby… some of his gun-related violence happened before the security was issued. Read this, it’s very enlightening about the problems we face from the system: “How he got his gun…
The NRA believes people with mental health problems should not be able to get access to firearms. Shortly after the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, last December, the organization called for increased data collection on those with certain mental conditions.
It seems clear, 24 hours after the fact, that Alexis suffered from some mental health issues. As the AP reported Tuesday, Alexis, a Navy veteran, began treatment for “serious mental issues, including paranoia and a sleep disorder,” beginning last month. By then, he’d already purchased the shotgun that he used in Monday’s attack.
When firearm dealers in states submit an application for a background check to the FBI, mental health is one of the considerations the agency applies for approval. The guideline is specific: the applicant cannot have been “adjudicated as a mental defective or committed to a mental institution.” (Only one percent of rejected applications failed due to this restriction.) Alexis was neither at the time of his application. Not that it necessarily mattered; as The Washington Post reported, the Virginia Tech shooter failed the first part of that test, but since state data wasn’t shared with the federal government, he passed a background check. The General Accounting Office calculated that the federal database includes about 2.3 million fewer records than it should.
Alexis’ pattern of mental health issues overlaps with his criminal history. In 2004, Alexis was arrested in Seattle after an incident in which he shot out the tires of a car, according to the Seattle Police Department.
Following his arrest, Alexis told detectives he perceived he had been “mocked” by construction workers the morning of the incident and said they had “disrespected him.” Alexis also claimed he had an anger-fueled “blackout,” and could not remember firing his gun at the victims’ vehicle until an hour after the incident.
Alexis received misdemeanor charges of property damage and discharge of a firearm. In 2010, he was arrested again, this time for apparently accidentally firing a bullet into his neighbor’s apartment. No charges were filed. The FBI background check only bars those “convicted in any court of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year” from receiving approval.
The FBI also blocks those who have been dishonorably discharged from the military from getting background check approval. Alexis, despite repeatedly being cited for infractions while he was in the military, was honorably discharged.”
Clearly shotguns, Joe Biden, and Dianne Feinstein (both of whom hold security clearances) should be banned. For the children.
Well, at the very least, Biden and Feinstein should just be put under a supervised, state imposed anti-psychotropic drug program. They both pose an eminent threat.
Sarah Palin:
If it isn’t entirely too late, it is time for the American people to begin to demand civility of one another…that requires teaching basic morality. It requires training our children and providing them good examples.
Kind of off topic.
Did you all hear about the Calif. Democrat who resigned after threatening Ted Cruz’s speech writer on Twitter?
Communications chair of Sac Dems resigns after death tweet:
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KCRA) —The communications chair for the Sacramento County Democrats resigned Friday hours after sending a tweet that threatened a U.S. senator’s speechwriter and her family.
Read more: http://www.kcra.com/news/communications-chair-of-sac-dems-wishes-death-on-speechwriters-children/-/11797728/22043046/-/9v69d1/-/index.html#ixzz2fUTwrP2z
Wit’ all these here shenanigans going on wit’ this Anti Gun media, heres sumin you can reckon about … “He wern’t a white guy, he wern’t a Christian, and he didn’t use an AR-15. Dang it, how do we twist this un?”