[Runscott]

Originally Posted by tiger8mush

Hi Scott, unfortunately your link above doesn't work for me.

My general thoughts:

1) i'm in favor of SOME gun control, but believe in general that guns should be allowed
2) we shouldn't turn a blind eye to mental illness
3) we should execute this guy

Where do i draw the line? i don't know. but this was planned over many months. He was sane enough to do this stuff secretly and not get arrested beforehand. We can't do 110% background check on every person that looks/acts weird. If every person that commits a crime gets mental treatment and put on drugs in order to function normally, we'll soon be an entire nation on drugs in order to function how society or the gov't wants us to function. I know, I exaggerate, and I blabber on, and at times i may be non-sympathetic, but if you have urges to do mass destruction over many months and don't get your fix by just playing video games or maybe paintball, and then you act upon them, you aren't fit for a free society. Some people can be & should be helped. Not this guy. So are we gonna use him like a guinea pig now and see what meds over the next 25 years will help or hurt him? Or can we just end his life for the 71 people he directly injured/killed and countless others whose lives he's shattered for losing loved ones?

BTW, just to keep blabbering on, where will the money come from to do MORE mental illness checks and tests and drug treatments? More taxes? Or maybe less money spent on foreign wars (yes I'm a Ron Paul fanboy) so that we CAN put more money into helping our own country first?

(I know its tough to read to read internet postings, but all of my words are meant to be very humble and open for calm debate - I'm a rational person that can be reasoned with )

Thank you very much for posting. A lot of what follows is repeats of what I've posted previously, but I can tell from your response that you missed quite a bit of that - understandably, as it was long-winded, as is the following.

Until you've had direct involvement with mental illness, you're not going to understand that "sane enough" does not mean you are in your right mind. I've tried to rebut such comments several times, and no one on the board has gotten it - to them, if someone is able to think straight, then they are sane, which is not necessarily true. But I'll briefly try. Try to imagine that one day you are functioning with someone else's mind, but you still think it's your own, because it's basically an altered reality. It's a bad mind - still has all your basic intelligence, but now you are MORE creative, think FASTER...and are very angry (anger is the key ingredient to manic attacks for young men in their '20s). Then you get your mind back. You're astounded and embarrassed at anything you did while operating with this 'different' mind. Fortunately, you and others will generally get what you would like without worrying too much about lethal injection, as the person will generally commit suicide once they realize what they have done. So, a great ending that's nice and clean, and no one has to concern themselves about dealing with the unpleasantness of mental illness. I am not saying that this is the diagnosis for the Colorado killer, but based on what you (and others) have written, if it WERE the diagnosis, you'd still go for a quick execution.

I find the following statement very curious: "where will the money come from to do MORE mental illness checks and tests and drug treatments?". Funding comes after public awareness. There is currently no worthwhile public awareness. If there were, you'd find the money - the 'pool' would simply be reallocated. It's not like building a new baseball stadium.

You would probably have to take money from something really important such as war, and apply it to something very unpleasant, that no one wants to think about (much easier to label people as evil or angry).

But here's an example: what if people all of a sudden became aware that a new disease (we'll call it AIDS) was killing lots of people? Well, anti-gays would refuse to support it because it doesn't affect them directly, and there is a stigma associated with gay sex (yeah, just like the stigma associated with mental illness). They' say "let them take care of it - they brought it on themselves". Then let's say that the anti-gays found that this disease was affecting THEM and their CHILDREN. All of a sudden, this new public 'awareness' would result in money being found.

Up through the '70s, the mentally ill were considered a nuisance or a danger, and were locked up in institutions to protect the sane - not to help the patients. That was a problem, but like retirement homes, provided a convenient places for family members to dump their burdensome loved ones, so it all worked out for everyone...except the mentally ill. Releasing them to the streets was NOT a good solution, but we found that most of them mixed in well with the bums and drug addicts, and it didn't affect us directly, so we were generally okay with Reagan's solution.

The good news for you is that you don't have to help fund as many institutions - YEA!!! The bad news is that you have to deal with those bothersome schizophrenics on the streets , but at least they aren't costing you much. Wait - I forgot about the repeated 72-hr observations at the hospital, the drugs and alcohol they use to self-medicate on the streets, the constant arrests...I guess they are costing you money. I apologize personally for their behavior, but you should thank me for loving my family member and keeping them out of your hair, fighting the system the entire way. In my own personal case, I am positive that it would have been cheaper for you ('you' representing Joe Taxpayer), if there had been more funding. In almost all circumstances, fixing a problem BEFORE it manifests itself is cheaper to everyone than fixing it after the fact.

But more funding would require 'Public awareness' that it would actually help society to do more research, have more psychiatric facilities and doctors, education for policemen and jailers, court systems with the ability to 'judge' the mentally ill without the ignorance that they currently operate under. But again, all of this would require that your own family members (and those of countless other Americans) be affected directly by mental illness - that's the kick in the ass that has to happen. Hopefully that doesn't happen to you or your loved ones. Catch-22

Thanks for reading this. I realize that it's still easier to ignore such problems, and honestly, I ignored it for years while living in the nice sane suburbs. But it has been tougher over the last 6 years, as there are annoying crazy people all around me in downtown Seattle. Now that it's hit my family, I know that they are also human beings, but trying to survive without the comfort of the nice, clean, well-functioning brain that you and I possess. Some of them could be helped, but only if they have advocates to push them down that road, and only if they have places to get treatment and people to diagnose them. As long as they are just 'crazy' people, they are screwed. More funding would mean fewer of them on the streets, and more of them at home with their families, functioning like you - not doing drugs, working jobs, PAYING TAXES , but most importantly - living the best lives they possibly can, which every human being deserves.