Quote:
Originally Posted by Cimarron29414
bg-
My understanding is that his parents received a letter from his college stating that he could not return until he had a mental health evaluation. They did not do that. All of these "other people" that you feel also dropped the ball did not have the legal authority to push for mental health treatment. I don't know the laws in Arizona, but involuntary committal authority, if available, isn't given to a person's teacher. However, if available, it would be given to his parents who were also the owners of the house he lived and slept in. Again, I place their negligence equal to the Columbine killers' parents.
...and it seems all too easy for many here to "pin blame" on a firearm or its magazine.
|
My point is that simply blaming his parents tends to absolve virtually everyone else in a situation that could have very well been influenced by someone other than his parents. I don't know much about his home situation. For all I know he could have been completely estranged from them. (And, for the record, I don't blame the firearm, nor its magazine.)
I also don't know the laws and whether his parents had legal recourse. Was he not an adult at the time? I also don't know anything about the level of understanding his parents had about mental health issues and the options that were available to them.
It's also evident that Loughner himself, as an adult, didn't seek help on his own.
Anyway, Loughner wasn't exactly a criminal until he started pulling the trigger. In how many situations is this the case? It's not that criminals get guns; it's that they already have them.
What about economies of scale? Are guns really cheap in the U.S.?
I suppose my general position on this is that there isn't a huge impact on what gun control means in terms of criminal elements. There are gun laws here in Canada that I'm sure make many Americans squirm. However, the criminal elements here have guns they shouldn't have. They probably get many of them from the States.
I view this issue as addressing symptoms, rather than problems.
The problem with crime isn't all the guns. That's an outcome. The biggest problems leading to crime are poverty, social disadvantage, educational deficiency, and mental health issues (including addiction). As you can guess, many of these are interconnected.
Rather than institute a federal-level gun-control policy in the U.S., they should establish or improve national standards regarding public health care, social assistance, quality education, and accessible mental health services. For those that are in place already, they clearly need to be revised or reformed.
Considering it's the wealthiest nation in the world, the U.S. has serious deficiencies regarding these issues.
To fight poverty alone is to fight crime.
---------- Post added at 10:45 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:43 AM ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by roachboy
guns don't make you free. you aren't free now but many of you have guns. look around. you live in a financial oligarchy and you have a gun. you live under a single party state with two right wings and you have a gun. you live in a fading empire, you can do nothing about anything to do with either the empire or the ways in which it is fading and you have a gun. wake up.
|
This is opening another can of worms, but, yeah.