Re: An NRA spokespersons said...
"Whilst your heart is in the right place, your brain seems not to be."
Yes it is. It's fine.
I just happen to recognise that my right to have fun shooting a weapon is less important than people's rights not to be the victim of gun crime. My right to protect myself with lethal force is less important than my right to not have a firearm pointed at me.
"Many people had pointed out his problems before the incident."
So what? He was antsy? Wow: He was a one in a million teenager!
So... we round up every teen who is pointed out as being sullen and an outcast? Because we had what... a couple of crazy-ass shootings last year, compared to how many teenagers being problematic? Do we want to actually incarcerate or put on medication a hundred thousand teens on that basis?
If you'd rather incarcerate and forcibly medicate 20% of each generation rather than have some sensible laws about firearm ownership and storage then I don't think it's my brain that's the one in the wrong place, mate.
"adding a few cheap psychiatric tests to identify the potentially problematic would not seem beyond the realm of capabilities or the stretch of the government's purse."
Firstly, anyone involved in psychometric testing will tell you that it's not cheap. Or accurate in the case of teenagers who are already very volatile and awash with hormones. Your point is provably untrue. Nice idea, but doesn't work.
"and it would not infringe on the rights of anyone."
How is forcing every teen in the country to take psychiatric tests and insisting on treating those that 'fail' with mandatory evaluation, meds, or incarcerating not trampling anyone's rights?
"What we need is pre-event action, such as proper identification of those in need of help."
Like locking people up before they commit a crime, on the basis that they might do because the class jocks have been beating the sh!t out of them for years? Seriously?
In most cases it's a direct result of their environment. Let's isolate the guy who is isolated some more, shall we? That'll help!
The problem isn't the poor idiot who breaks down and pulls the trigger. It's that he's shoved to that point in the first place by society and that he can easily get hold of a device that makes it trivially easy to enact lethal revenge upon that society. Take away the firearm and he'll sulk in his room and imagine how great it would be to 'show them' perhaps. Give him a firearm and he can enact that.
"Surely wanting to protect people (especially schoolkids) from psychopaths, and identifying those with potential mental illnesses before they lead to disasterous events is giving a sh*t?"
Firstly psychopaths don't tend to go in for spree killings of this kind. Psychopath are more resilient and aren't easily reduced to the emotional state that lends itself to running amok. And lots of psychopaths exist just fine without killing people. Psychopathy does not mean that the person will kill. You are basically saying that a mental condition that a percentage point of the population have to some degree should see someone 'treated' before they do anything wrong.
You seem to want to protect everyone by screening for potential teenage troublemakers and 'treating them' because that's less morally abhorrent to you than gun control. That signifies to me that you think that the right to casually own a lethal weapon is more important as a right than a teenager's right to freedom. I call that ass-about-face preaching about rights.
"Letting your overwhelming desire for the "good in everyone to shine through" is, however, a touchingly naive weakness"
Shove it. Sincerely.
Don't try to lecture me about my brain and then be so dumb as to assume that anyone favouring gun control or opposing your view is a naive and weak hippy of some kind. Your lack of empathy you display in your attitude is not a strength: It's weak, and a trivially easy path to walk. That's nothing to be proud of.
"You are locked in a room with ten people"
Why do *I* have the kit? Why isn't the kit there on the table for anyone to use if they want to know for themselves? And your example shows that you have a backwards viewpoint as regards mental health issues. A teenager who is close to a breakdown is not automatically going to become a killer. A teenager with a mental health issue such as psychopathy, depression or whatever is not destined to commit crime.
"I am advocating identifying the diseased and keeping them away from the cutlery "
So.. a form of gun control. You want to identify people you don't think should have guns and stop them having them based on them on questionable criteria.
That's interesting. So moody teens don't get to go near guns, but paranoid survivalists who stockpile firearms because Obama is going to invite the Commies over can keep them? And those guys who have a room full of firearms and gleefully plan how to legitimately commit murder in retaliation for a mere attempted burglary are totally ok to own firearms, too?
And yeah: Throwing the cutlery away will help, because then if things go wrong, people think of other solutions. Because that's the problem with having a big stick/gun/army: Give someone one and it suddenly becomes the first thing they think of using. It's the old give someone a hammer and everything becomes a nail syndrome.
House broken into: Murder the perp.
Bullied at school: Kill classmates.
Mugged people sometimes fight back: Carry a pistol
Might get mugged: Carry a pistol
Firearms don't enable defence; they stop people thinking clearly and tend to immediately escalate situations into a lethal confrontation.