Posted on 02/18/2008 2:19:07 PM PST by neverdem
The quandary: Preventing deadly campus shootings while respecting rights
A week ago, Steven Kazmierczak walked into Tony's Guns & Ammo, a yellow shop in a back yard near the University of Illinois, and bought a Remington shotgun and a 9 mm Glock pistol.
Around the same time, family members noticed that Kazmierczak was acting "erratically," after he had stopped taking prescription medicines for anxiety.
Kazmierczak used his two new guns, and two more he had also purchased legally, to kill five students and himself Thursday in a shooting rampage at Northern Illinois University that leaves policymakers again scrambling to figure out how they can stop the carnage.
In the wake of April's massacre at Virginia Tech, in which a student with a history of mental problems bought guns that he used to kill 32 people and then himself, lawmakers in Washington and across the nation looked for ways to prevent unstable people from getting guns.
It remains unclear exactly what Kazmierczak's mental state was at the time of the shooting, and it is even less certain whether Illinois' new law on reporting mental illness, one of the toughest in the nation, would have made any difference.
But the shootings and the legislative response raise two of the nation's most controversial subjects -- gun control and the rights of the mentally ill -- in a volatile combination, further inflamed by the horror and outrage...
--snip--
When the new state law takes effect June 1, health professionals in Illinois will be required to report to the Department of Human Services any patient "whose mental condition is of such a nature that it is manifested by violent, suicidal, threatening or assaultive behavior" -- the kind of reporting that previously took place only when a person was admitted to a mental health institution...
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
You are not the first to propose this. See Heinlein's "Beyond This Horizon" as an example:
One sub-theme of the book is the carrying and use of firearms. In the novel being armed is part of being a man; otherwise he wears a brassard and is considered weak and inferior. Women are allowed but not expected to be armed. Duels, either deadly or survivable, may easily occur when someone feels that they have been wronged or insulted, a custom that keeps order and politeness. A defining quote from the book, "An armed society is a polite society", is very popular with those in the United States who support the personal right to bear arms. (cited from here.)
It is also curious that the book is part of the "early, liberal-minded Heinlein" period (the novel was first published in 1942.) I guess the meaning of many words changed in last decades.
Prozac was the one I saw mentioned in the Chicago Sun-Times, but have heard nothing more. It wouldn’t surprise me to hear that he’d also been on lithium which is used for manic-depressive but has undesirable side-effects - so much so that people like my brother didn’t want to take it as regularly as he should have.
Even though that is a racist statement, I can take care of that by outlawing, or requiring registration of, anything black. /sarc>
Ok, so it’s the medication so make it a law to have to take it .... Illinois, sounds like a second England, Australia and New Zealand .....
Not all who wore the Brassard of Peace were weak and inferior. I must note that the “Guardians” (IIRC) who were the Police Officers of that society wore both the Brassard of Peace and carried arms. Everyone was thereby put on notice - by the combination of the Brassard and the weapon - that they could not be fired upon.
I'd also add, that if one were out drinking, or otherwise incapcitated/injured, a brassard was called for.
A fun way to deal with liberals at the dinner table that get all smug about gun control: Simply deny that the event happened.
When they ask if you've heard about "this latest school shooting..." you merely say: "I heard about it, but I'm sure it never happened."
"Of course it happened. It's in all the news."
"Couldn't have happened. It's a gun free zone. Impossible. There are no guns in gun free zones. It's the law."
"It doesn't matter what the law says..."
"Oh really?" You can smile at this point. :-)
We’re Christians too ... and the Huckster came up. We, or I should say I, informed them that “we voted for the MORMON”. Jaws dropped. “They asked didn’t you know Dobson endorsed Huckabee?” I say, “sure did!” but Pat Robertson endorsed McCain ... it doesn’t matter WHO endorses whom ... we did our homework and saw the FRAUD he is and “voted for the Mormon” who showed more Biblical principles than the backslidden Baptist. We’re also Baptist. Honestly, I can’t understand these “Christians” and how easily they are influenced and confuse Christianity with Humanism.
I also asked them if they’d mind if they’re too kids were in the auditorium and someone off their meds came in with an AK-47 and shot them dead? Would that be okay? Absolutely defenseless in the “gun free zone”? I told them we’d want our kids to have a chance and that meant GUNS on someone ideally our kids! They just stared ... I’m still not sure if they “got it”.
OF course they don't mention that he bought his other two handguns months ago, before he went off his meds.
What will happen is that people will stop seeking psychiatric help, knowing they'll lose their guns and their ability to defend themselves.
Hardly, that would merely drive him to purchase the guns from an individual, rather than a licensed dealer. That might even be from an unlicensed dealer in stolen firearms. He wasn't far from the South Side of Chicago, where all handguns are illegal, and are freely available in back alleys and such, as are other sorts of "illegal" and legal but not for him, weapons.
“Anyone hear what drugs he was taking?”
Not me, not yet. But his tattoos really creeped me out. Talk about a warning!
Can you describe the tattoo?
Does anyone know the religious affiliation of this
Kazmierczak? ROP,Baptist,Catholic,Mormon? Just wondering.
It’s interesting the huge rush to criminalize anyone “mentally ill” by forcing doctors to report them to the state, invade their privacy, etc. But the question is, how many people “mentally ill” actually go on shooting rampages? A very tiny minority.
Instead of banning guns, why not ban the DRUGS that seem to cause psychosis, particulary in young men, or can induce psychosis during withdrawals? Why not make doctors accountable who prescribe these meds like candy but then do not follow up to supervise their patients?
I saw three of them on TV. They were apparantly photographed by the tattoo artist. One was a large knife, vertical, sticking through the top of a skull. Another was a cartoon character on a bicyle, riding through blood, with blood splashes all around. I can’t remember the third. The artist said he had been in for more tats in the last month or so.
Not true. He could still buy a firearm in another way.
Thanks for the info!
Very interesting from the doctor’s perspective, I see. But the media’s slant to mental illness in crime might be wrong anyway, no one has actually reported that this man had a diagnosis of schizophrenia, bipolar, or whatever. Sounds more like a sociopath when you look at the tattoos and other things in his past.
Also, I have read that the “mentally ill” commit violent crimes at the same rate as the general population, about 2-3 percent. Even with psychosis, I believe most ill people tend to harm only themselves, not others. So I don’t believe the facts warrant the invasion of privacy, patient-doctor confidentiality, and personal liberties that would be imposed by trying through some very elaborate and expensive system to keep guns away from someone who you, as you say, you really cannot predict will do something.
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