Well, I know a lot about the crazies (on both sides of the locked door), and I couldn't agree more.
There are at least 100 000, maybe more, for whom both Christian charity (asylum) and public safety should demand permanent hospitalization.
But "let's not throw money at the problem"?
Are you kidding? It will cost trillions to deal effectively with all the people like Loughner, and Kaszinski, and Hinckley, and Cho, and on, and on. That's why the State Hospitals were all closed and why public psychiatry has, effectively, ceased to exist. There was no money for it (no votes in it, I mean) as long ago as 1963.
I see no chance that an effective public psychiatry system can be re-created under current conditions.
I posted links to the stagte hospitals in FL and GA this am...they’re up and running.
Let’s get ‘em committed and deal with the budgetary issue as needed.
Let’s not emulate the libs and come up with some spending program and assume that solves the problem.
A lot of the changes in handling the mentally ill had to do with “patient rights” PC bilge which resulted in thousands of Loughner’s being foisted on us.