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America Doesn’t Need Gun Control, It Needs Lunatic Control
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| Daniel Greenfield
Posted on 12/18/2012 5:52:29 AM PST by expat1000
Here are some excerpts from a compelling piece written just this year. Madness, Deinstitutionalization & Murder (hat tip I Own the World.)
For those of us who came of age in the 1970s, one of the most shocking aspects of the last three decades was the rise of mass public shootings: people who went into public places and murdered complete strangers. Such crimes had taken place before, such as the Texas Tower murders by Charles Whitman in 1966,1 but their rarity meant that they were shocking.
Something changed in the 1980s: these senseless mass murders started to happen with increasing frequency. People were shocked when James Huberty killed twenty-one strangers in a McDonalds in San Ysidro, California in 1984, and Patrick Purdy murdered five children in a Stockton, California schoolyard in 1989.
For a while, it was fashionable to blame gun availability for this dramatic increase. But guns did not become more available before or during this change. Instead, federal law and many state laws became more restrictive on purchase and possession of firearms, sometimes in response to such crimes.
Nor has the nature of the weapons available to Americans changed all that much. In 1965, Popular Science announced that Colt was selling the AR-15, a semiautomatic version of the M-16 for the civilian market.
The Browning Hi-Power, a 9mm semiautomatic pistol with a thirteen-round magazine, was offered for sale in the United States starting in 1954, and advertised for civilians in both the U.S. and Canada at least as early as 1960.
If gun availability does not explain the increase of mass public murders, what else might?
Clayton Cramer points to deinstitutionalization.
At least half of these mass murderers (as well as many other murderers) have histories of mental illness. Many have already come to the attention of the criminal justice or mental health systems before they become headlines. In the early 1980s, there were about two million chronically mentally ill people in the United States, with 93 percent living outside mental hospitals. The largest diagnosis for the chronically mentally ill is schizophrenia, which afflicts about 1 percent of the population, or about 1.5 percent of adult Americans.
A 1999 study found that 16.2 percent of state prison inmates, 7.4 percent of federal prison inmates, and 16.3 percent of jail inmates, were mentally ill. As of 2002, about 13 percent of mentally ill state prison inmates nationwide had been convicted of murder.
In the 1960s, the United States embarked on an innovative approach to caring for its mentally ill: deinstitutionalization. The intentions were quite humane: move patients from long-term commitment in state mental hospitals into community-based mental health treatment.
John Linley Frazier was one of the first such examples. Like many other schizophrenics, he first exhibited symptoms in his early 20s. Fixated on ecology, after a traffic accident he became convinced that God had given him a mission to rid the Earth of those who were altering the natural environment. Fraziers mother and wife recognized how seriously ill he was, and tried to obtain treatment for him, but he refused it.
Patrick Purdy, a mentally ill drifter, used his Social Security Disability payments to buy guns, while having a series of run-ins with the law. After one suicide attempt in jail in 1987, a mental health evaluation concluded that he was a danger to his health and others. In January 1989, Purdy went onto a schoolyard in Stockton, California with an AK-47 rifle, murdered five children and wounded twenty-nine others, before taking his own life.
Federal prosecutors held back for a few days from indicting Laurie Wasserman Dann in May 1988 for a series of harassing and frightening phone callsand in those few days, she went on a rampage, killing one child in an elementary school, wounding five children and one adult, and distributing poisoned cookies and drinks to fraternities at Northwestern University.
Buford Furrow was a member of a neo-Nazi group in Washington State. Conflicts with his wife led her to take him to a mental hospital, where he threatened suicide and shooting people at a nearby shopping mall. He threatened nurses with a knife. At trial, he told the judge about his mental illness problems and suicidal/homicidal fantasies. The judge refused to hospitalize Furrow, sending him to jail instead. Released within a few months, Furrow went to Los Angeles in August 1999, where he acted out the fantasy that he had earlier told the court: he shot up a Jewish community center, wounding five people, and murdering an Asian-American mail carrier nearby.
There is a long list of similar cases which point to the fact that the problem isnt the availability of assault rifles, its the failure to lock up the violent mentally ill because of intervention from groups such as the ACLU.
TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: banglist; guncontrol; lunatics; mental; secondamendment
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To: dmz
A joint effort between the medical and the spiritual help resources.
41
posted on
12/18/2012 7:12:28 AM PST
by
Biggirl
("Jesus talked to us as individuals"-Jim Vicevich/Thanks JimV!)
To: expat1000
mental health train wreaks bump for later.......
42
posted on
12/18/2012 7:23:20 AM PST
by
indthkr
To: expat1000
America Doesnt Need Gun Control, It Needs Lunatic Control
FINALLY! Someone in the major media is saying this.
I've been saying it for decades and decades and decades. Pretty much my entire adult life since the bleeding heart liberals started closing down the Mental Institutions in the 1960's and putting the Insane People On The Streets -- "because they have rights".
43
posted on
12/18/2012 7:27:19 AM PST
by
Condor51
(Si vis pacem, para bellum.)
To: Trapped Behind Enemy Lines
To: Mr. K
>Who was in volved in Lanzas life? was he ever arrested? institutionalized? With all the money paid to all these government bureaucrats, didnt ANY OF THEM see this kids was a nutjob? Or did none of them ever notice?<
His fellow classmates all reported they were in no way surprised Lanza turned out to be the individual responsible for the massacre.
That said, until he began that massacre, authorities had nothing upon which to act. And, due to the “security” plan at the school, there wasn’t even a can of pepper spray with which those adults could fight back.
45
posted on
12/18/2012 7:33:21 AM PST
by
Darnright
("I don't trust liberals, I trust conservatives." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
To: expat1000
It Needs Lunatic Control
Short of locking these people up, there's a tech solution:
Tag them with RF transmitters, and make sure schools and other public places can recieve the signal.
Sadly, many of these people need to be on a permanent "watch list" - and the worst of them should simply be locked up until new drugs (schizophrenia) or other treatments can be found to help them.
46
posted on
12/18/2012 7:34:10 AM PST
by
indthkr
To: expat1000
Emanuel calls for vote of conscience on assault weapons ban
BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter fspielman@suntimes.com December 17, 2012 1:08PM
Chicago Police Superintendent Garry F. McCarthy, at news conference Monday, November 26, 2012. l John H. White ~Sun-Times
Updated: December 18, 2012 8:45AM
Mayor Rahm Emanuel called Monday for a vote of conscience on an assault weapons ban in the wake of the Connecticut school massacre but Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said it would be like putting a Band-Aid on a cancer without a companion ban on high-capacity magazines.
And Gov. Pat Quinn on Monday renewed his call to ban the sale and possession of semi-automatic assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
http://www.suntimes.com
47
posted on
12/18/2012 7:35:20 AM PST
by
KeyLargo
To: Mashood
Just wait till they get a load of the revolution.
Just a dream - never happening with this culture. If we were back in 1812 Americans would want to just keep negotiating with the enemy. We know who the enemy is, and they are right here on our soil, running our schools and all branches of our Fed Gov
48
posted on
12/18/2012 7:42:49 AM PST
by
Cheerio
(Barry Hussein Soetoro-0bama=The Complete Destruction of American Capitalism)
To: expat1000
Unfortunately, lunatic control would necessitate rounding up everyone in government, as well as the entire Democratic Party.
Not really practical.
To: listenhillary
Thursday, July 26,2012
Mental health care, not gun laws
By Pamela White
In the aftermath of the Aurora theater massacre, weve seen an understandable, if misguided, call for tighter gun control, including a renewed ban on assault weapons.
But since the suspect in this case broke a great many laws to carry out his mass killing, including acquiring an extended magazine for his AR-15, its hard to say what well gain by making it harder for citizens to own weapons.
As Gov. John Hickenlooper told CNN, Im happy to look at anything, but if there were no assault weapons available, and no this or no that, this guy is going to find something. He knows how to create a bomb, and who knows where the mind would have gone.
Where theres a sick will, theres a way.
What people arent talking about in this case is the need for an overhaul of our mental health system. Since our goal ought to be preventing future tragedies like this one, not just passing feel-good legislation that has little real impact, perhaps our focus ought to be on the problem that likely caused the alleged perpetrator James Holmes to kill: mental illness.
http://www.boulderweekly.com/article-9309-mental-health-care-not-gun-laws.html
50
posted on
12/18/2012 7:44:19 AM PST
by
KeyLargo
To: expat1000
“Lunatic Control”
1- MSNBC talking heads
2- CIC and his cabinet
3- Dems in House & Senate
(was that last modifier unnecessary?)
51
posted on
12/18/2012 7:46:57 AM PST
by
G Larry
(Which of Obama's policies do you think I'd support if he were white?)
To: Darnright
i didnt even think of that
even if you are an anti-gun nut you have to see the good sense of making sure they have SOMEthing (like pepper spray)
A few students I remember from when I was a teacher could have greatly bnenefitted from being hosed down with pepper srpay a few times.
52
posted on
12/18/2012 7:49:58 AM PST
by
Mr. K
(some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help...)
To: Jack Hammer
all citizens are lunatics.
lunatics should not have second amendment rights.
citizens should not have second amendment rights.
53
posted on
12/18/2012 7:51:37 AM PST
by
longtermmemmory
(VOTE! http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov)
To: expat1000
The NEA is responsible for creating an educational atmosphere where kids are emotionally and spiritually separated from their parents through so-called "health education."
The NEA got their practice in the 1970s, implementation in the 1980s, by the 1990s and beyond their have been increasing incidents of school shootings by students.
The National Education Association is responsible for these acts of murder. Not the NRA.
54
posted on
12/18/2012 7:57:39 AM PST
by
Slyfox
(The key to Marxism is medicine - V. Lenin)
To: Darnright
While I see your point that “nothing can be done” until he does something.
But is this really the first criminal act he ever comitted?
I lived in the Tucson and shopped at the store that Loughner killed people at. I was THERE that morning before it happened.
This kid was a known quantity by the local police- he had been stopped by the police many times. They always let him go because mommy worked for the government and would make trouble if they didnt. PROSECUTE MOMMY
55
posted on
12/18/2012 7:58:51 AM PST
by
Mr. K
(some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help...)
To: Slyfox
Police walk the halls of inner city schools. Armed police.
56
posted on
12/18/2012 8:01:39 AM PST
by
combat_boots
(The Lion of Judah cometh. Hallelujah. Gloria Patri, Filio et Spiritui Sancto!)
To: combat_boots
Yes, but at some point people are going to have to look at the root of the problem.
The root is the NEA's sociopath-creating, so-called "health" programs.
57
posted on
12/18/2012 8:06:13 AM PST
by
Slyfox
(The key to Marxism is medicine - V. Lenin)
To: expat1000
“America Doesnt Need Gun Control, It Needs Lunatic Control”
Actually, it needs more people carrying.
“Lunatic control” is a kneejerk reaction to the calls for “gun control” which is the primary kneejerk reaction to the shooting.
However, lunatic control can be just as unconstitutional as gun control.
The latest shooter is characterized as an asperger’s type (though it seems to be more rumor than diagnosis).
The first draft of the DSM-V indicated that most asperger cases, as well as other “autism spectrum disorders” can lead normal lives without treatment.
I found that to be a pretty shocking statement considering that the DSM V is supposed to describe clinical problems, not personalities. The condition was removed from subsequent drafts.
Nevertheless, screening folks for mental illness and locking them up can get pretty dangerous too.
Can you really trust your government or school shrinks to decide if you’re dangerous and should be removed from society? The first draft of the DSM V had a personality type characterized as a mental disorder.
You can certainly argue that there are obvious cases where folks do need to be committed, but is it really the solution to the shooting in question?
I say not.
The real solution is the fundamental one - an armed public.
However, in effect, folks are generally not allowed this. E.g. to get a concealed carry permit, you have to provide prints, etc., to make sure you’re not a criminal. Sounds reasonable until you realize it only takes about 5 minutes for a cop to find this out about you during a traffic stop. All the hoops you jump through for that permit are the culmination of kneejerk reactions to violence.
If someone calls the police and say they see someone openly carrying (not brandishing) in an open carry state, do the police say “that’s perfectly legal” and hang up or do they send cops over to “investigate”?
When someone defends themselves in their home are they celebrated as a hero or prosecuted as a murderer?
Without the legal and social barriers above, we’d have a much safer public as HONEST armed citizens would step up to the plate when needed, comparable to a civil defense matter.
Fewer guns, more asylums, and more cops are not the best answer for a supposedly free country.
58
posted on
12/18/2012 8:07:14 AM PST
by
fruser1
To: Mr. K
>But is this really the first criminal act he ever comitted?<
One would think this individual has a trail somewhere. I would suggest that since society cannot predict with any accuracy when a lunatic will snap, it’s vital that our schools have either an armed resource officer or at the very least pepper spray or a taser...SOMETHING that allows the responsible adults a way to fight off an individual bent on killing the most helpless among us.
My child’s high school had an officer on site. He was very popular with the students who accepted him as part of their lives. One of my cousins works as a DARE officer in a different school.
Nobody wants to accept the fact that “gun free zone” schools are attractive targets. Instead of illogical screams to disarm millions of the law abiding, liberals would be better served to work for a police officer (retired perhaps) to be part of the staff in their public schools.
Of course, we’re talking liberals here. Logic is a foreign concept to their minds.
59
posted on
12/18/2012 8:17:06 AM PST
by
Darnright
("I don't trust liberals, I trust conservatives." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
To: expat1000
The largest diagnosis for the chronically mentally ill is schizophrenia, which afflicts about 1 percent of the population, or about 1.5 percent of adult Americans.Tied neck-and-neck with homosexual behavioral disorder, which claims about the same amount of adults, although there is some crossover there.
60
posted on
12/18/2012 8:20:54 AM PST
by
Albion Wilde
(The only way to stop a man with a gun is with a gun. --Daniel Greenfield)
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