In Mother Maryland You Dont Write Books, Books Write You...

I have a hard time balancing the right's fear of, well, everything (they must've watched Micheal Myers repeatedly at an impressionable age) with the left's fear of uncontrolled access to firearms.

So, yeah, let's not worry about it, then. After all, the odds of any kid you know getting shot in school are far lower than the risk to the clerk in your local 7Eleven.

B-but according to the NRA and the people who sell home security systems (with access to statistics only they seem to possess) "ONE IN FIVE HOMES IN AMERICA IS THE VICTIM OF A BREAK-IN EVERY YEAR!!!1!!"

See, that's what some of us define as hysteria.

No, this thread is about mental illness and incarceration without due process. Some faction would like this to be a 1st amendment or 2nd amendment issue, but it's more important than that.

Wow, not sure where you got that idea.

So you have an aversion (along with most of us) to the fact that the media abhors a vacuum. As other crime statistics go down (and do they, really, or do law enforcement agencies resort to "creative accounting"?), they've got to yammer about something else 24/7.

Intellectually, though, you might look at it as "What can we do to keep this sector from increasing?"

Did you miss the part about the suicide note and the threatening letter? Does the hyper-focus on guns in this forum mean no one plants bombs anymore?

Don't forget his scale-model buildings. He must have had an impressive array of x-acto knives.

Come to think of it, we better schedule an intervention over at the Forbin household.

Ah, an appeal to authority. How quaint. Sorry, but being a "trained professional" does not mean they can't be wrong or overzealous, nor does being some "random asshole on the internet" automatically make me or anyone else wrong. You realize that you're arguing in favor of authoritarianism, right?

Indeed I do.

Also speculation on your part.

To you.

False dichotomy .

Which changes nothing about what I said, and in fact serves to underline it. This guy's career is ruined. Hell, even if he chose another career, it's likely even that wouldn't work due to this hanging over him now. I hope he milks this school, police department, and county for everything it's worth, because he's going to need the money.

Yes, and if you aren't for the Patriot Act, clearly you side with the terrorists, hate this country, and want to murder little children.

Another one who missed the part about the suicide note and the threatening letter...

This way they don't have to file charges and worry about the constitution. They send them to the plastic spoon island.

Can't find the post the post where @Demiurge mentioned that focusing more on the mental heath stuff will mean more involuntary committals, but he's got a point. In another shooting thread (maybe the one about the rich SoCal snob that fooled the cops into thinking he was sane), it came up that the vast majority of these whack jobs from Lanza to the
Virginia Tech shooter had been seen by shrinks or at least had some for of medical access.. yet their docs did not automatically rat them out to get shipped to the looney bin.

I would think that ifvthe stuff about the crazy ass letter is true as a suicide threat, that would be grounds for committal, regardless of his subject matter in his novels.

No, it just makes you ignorant and therefore your opinion hold little merit.

Your logical fallacy is inappropriate use of logical fallacies.

To wit:

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-authority

Later emphasis mine.

You have neither the specific knowledge, professional standing, or access to the evidence to form a coherent argument. You have not interviewed the subject, been granted access to physical evidence, or know the exact timeline of this incident, nor would you be qualified to comment if you did.

Your argument has to be then that all opinions are equal - clearly that is not true. Einstein's opinion on general relativity has more merit than Torquemada's.

No. I realize you don't understand what the word authoritarianism means. It doesn't mean that all forms of authority that you personally don't agree with are invalid.

In this case, a judge had to consent to the individual being brought in for evaluation, and then 2 different physicians or psychiatrists have 30 hours to to conclude that the person met the guidelines to be observed for up to 10 days.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involuntary_commitment#Maryland

There are inherent checks and balances here - you can never be even sent to forced observation on one person's say so, let alone involuntarily committed for an extended time period.

The rest I'm going to snip as not worth commenting on until:

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman

Smack down!

Appeal to authority.

Meaningless given this context.

Yes, and one can never understand something unless they've personally experienced.

No, you're clearly arguing in favor of authoritarianism, where one must never question authority because people in authority are always right about whatever decree they happen to make.

Which was exactly my point, because that is exactly what your "argument" has consisted of. So I shot one back to you, but naturally you completely missed the point.

Are those cocktail coasters. I thought Trek had sweatless-glass technology.

^I never noticed those before.

actually I think they're round playing cards. Anything but square (60s, remember?)

And yeah, petulant anger describes xman's response.

If you say so. Of course all of you seem to be big fans of using mental health as a means of censorship, even before it came out that this was about more than the stories this guy wrote. I'll also never forget that the person garamet is apparently associating with Spock freaked out and left the board over a South Park screencap.

You're right!

It's been a long time since I've watched the original series. Good catch!

No, we just understand that if you don't put some restriction on weapons, and instead say its just a mental health issue, that the next thing that is going to happen is you will face a very proactive mental health community - because it will be their job to stop the guys before they kill.

Just like they didn't in several of the biggest mass shootings in US history, including Va Tech and Newton, where the people there had known mental health issues - but still had access to guns.

I didn't know I was so important to you.

You can remember it all you want - several people have already dinged me on that.

I honestly don't care - feel free to start a thread on the topic if you really 'want to get me.'

We both know that's a parting shot for losing the argument.

But there's only a few people here who's opinion matters to me.

That's why it was so easy to leave.

It's also the second time - I left for a year once before when there was a mod that I thought was hurting the board.

So as I originally asserted, if you can't be draconian about one thing, you insist being draconian about another.

The thing about the VTech guy was that there was a court order to put him on the list, but somewhere in the bureaucracy this failed to actually happen.

It's not that it's important exactly, it's that it adds perspective.

Huh. So violent crime has gone up since Obama's reelection? I guess there's some more change we can believe in.

Being prepared does not equal fear.

Boy Scouts are prepared. Gunlubbers are scared. Ask them what they're "prepared" for, and you get a variety of answers. My favorite is "Gubmint protects my right to own guns" even as they add to their little personal armories in anticipation that someday they'll see it as their patriotic duty to "defend themselves" against that very Gubmint.