Zixinus wrote:Do you believe that better gun control would have avoided the Tuscon "Open Congress" shooting?
In
that particular case I think the only thing that would have reasonably prevented deaths would be a
better mental health system in this country. Given his behavior in Pima College he should have been forced into a psychiatric evaluation which, I am convinced, would have definitely listed him as mentally ill, put him into the national database of “do not sell guns to this person”, and made it nigh impossible for him to obtain guns at the local Wal-Mart.
In an ideal world such an evaluation would be based not only on his interaction with a person qualified to diagnose mental illness but also his school conduct, job performance, and internet ravings. I believe that
in this particular case that would have led to his incarceration in a locked ward and some enforced treatment, even under today's laws, except for the minor detail that no one wants to pay for that sort of thing. Our society would rather wait for a mentally ill person to maim or kill others, then lock them in a prison or execute them. I view that as not only immoral, but (since so many only understand things in terms of money) not cost-effective. It is possible for treatment to restore sufficient sanity to many schizophrenics, to the point they can hold down a job, take care of themselves, not threaten others, and basically be a productive member of society while enjoying a reasonably normal life. Ideally, we'd try to achieve that state for schizophrenics before throwing them onto a trash heap of failed human beings but that's not how the world works at the moment.
We do know that the person was a lone nut: he believed that people were brainwashed through grammar and whatnot. The question is, would harder access to the gun have prevented such an accident?
What harder access are you proposing?
Fact is, there was nothing
on record prohibiting his purchase of a gun. Until you do something there is no mark against you.
The only gun control proposal suggested so far in this thread that might have worked is mandatory training classes, which he might have washed out of. That assumes there is some substance to the class, and that he couldn't repress his nutty demeanor sufficiently to grit his teeth and get through it. Whether or not he could do that depends in part on how rigorous the class was, and how frequent. He might have been able to get through an easy one or two session course.
However, if he had washed out of training (and one would hope that would be the case) there remains the problem of a dangerously ill person in the community. I suspect that if he couldn't have gotten a gun he would have used some other means to strike at Giffords and others. The death toll would have been lower (probably – if he used a bomb it might have been higher, but disorganized crazy thinking and bomb assembly are not a good mix, usually). I still maintain that
in this particular case enforced psychiatric treatment would have been the best preventive measure, and also morally justified.
My thoughts: Maybe. One thing is sure though, better security should have been done. Members of Congress should be protected a bit more and I would have thought that such rallies would have become a "gun-free-zone" by security anyway.
Many Congresspeople pride themselves on how accessible they are to their constituents. Security creates a barrier to that.
This also gets back to the issue of we have 50 different states and many large municipalities that result in a patchwork of laws. Arizona is
very liberal about allowing guns to be carried nearly everywhere, much more so than the rest of the country except, possibly, Alaska (where they have sufficient large and dangerous wildlife that walking around armed
does make sense over much of its territory). If such an event had occurred in, say, Chicago, it is MUCH more likely there would be security on hand. Heck, my local Aldi grocery store employs a security guard even when there aren't any governmental representatives there.
Would security have prevented this? Well... maybe. It depends on what sort of security you're talking about. A few relatively untrained warm bodies standing around? Maybe not. A guard with some talent for picking the troublemakers out of a crowd? – maybe. Bodyguards? Secret Service? They quite likely would have protected Giffords, but that still leaves the crowd at risk, and likely dead bodies still on the ground.
A fenced off area and metal detectors? Sure, that's starting to get to the point it might prevent such a catastrophe. But then, “Congress on the Corner” wouldn't be happening “on the corner”, at a local grocery store. That would be the trade-off, less accessibility to elected officials.
I believe that people should have access to firearms. However, I do not believe that they should do so without requisites: weapons should not be given to the criminal and insane.
I think we're all on board with that one.
Obviously a psych profile or something like that would have avoided giving a weapon to this psychopath. However, psychology is not an exact science and it would take months to make anything accurate. Not only would this inconvenience legitimate requests but also would give a chance to false diagnosis.
However,
in this particular case Loughner's behavior was so erratic, his communications so disordered, that it is almost a textbook fit for paranoid schizophrenia. I think even a short evaluation would tip off a doctor that there is something seriously wrong with the man, sufficiently wrong for a psychiatric admission to a hospital for an evaluation, at least 72 hours of observation (both are within the scope of current laws) to determine if his crazy behavior and thinking is the product of drugs or mental disease.
This isn't something like mild depression. This guy is
nuts. He's crazy enough that people in a classroom with him were positioning themselves near the door ready to flee. No one would make a precise diagnosis quickly but he's far gone enough that even a layperson knows there is something seriously, seriously wrong with him and a professional would have the basis for at least a temporary involuntary commitment. That right there would put him in the national database and make obtaining a gun far, far more difficult for Mr. Loughner.
This is definitely a case where people were reluctant to utilize the system
already in place. In Arizona the college would have been entirely without the scope of law to not simply expel Loughner but
require a psychiatric evaluation. The school choose not to utilize that. While not every state has laws permitting a college to force someone to undergo such an evaluation
Arizona does. In this case, the school may well be held liable for letting this guy slip through the cracks. I'm sure the school lawyers are shitting their pants right now over that, and if they aren't they should be. They
knew he was a problem, no question about it, and threatening to others just based on his behavior.
The big stumbling block, however, is that
no one wants to pay for mental health care. So there are
very few hospital beds open for such people. Society waits for them to commit crimes, then throws them into jail. While
physical health care is mandated, to a least a minimal level, while someone is in prison there is ZERO guarantee of ANY mental health care need being taken care of.
Now, a simple idea would be just to not give a license to anyone with criminal history or with mental disorder history that could influence judgment. This however is full of holes. What is a legitimate disorder that could endanger others? That, and remember that until a diagnosis no one has a mental disorder history, such as the shooter at Tuscon.
And that's the big flaw with using gun control to prevent
this particular case – shooting 19 people was his first official offense. A better mental health system that responded to his abnormal behavior might have prevented his hurting anyone, and if nothing else would have prevented him obtaining a gun (legally – there are, of course, ways to get a gun illegally)
Flagg wrote:SirNitram wrote:Ban the extended clip he used? It'd drop the goddamn number of victims. But the NRA, the very subject of the cartoon I posted, has started making their usual noises over the idea of restricting a pistol clip that can carry.. I don't remember, but it's quite a bit more. Plus, it ruins the aesthetics of the gun.
But if I don't have a 30 round magazine I'll have to reload twice as often! I mean yeah, you could have saved lives, but imagine the inconvenience!
It wasn't until he went to reload that the crowd was able to jump him and subdue him (one woman snatching the new clips out of his hand while two men tackled him). So yes, arguably a smaller reservoir of ammunition would have considerably reduced the damage. If he had had to reload after, say, 6 shots he might have shot only 2-3 people. He
certainly would not have been able to shoot 19 in that scenario. If nothing else it would have significantly reduced the carnage.
So this case would support banning, or very tightly regulating, extended ammo clips.
