Saturday, October 10, 2015

Involuntary detainment of crazy people who make threats

Excerpts from an Ann Coulter piece in Human Events:
...There’s a rigid formula in media accounts of mass shootings: If possible, blame it on angry white men; when that won’t work, blame it on guns.

True, America has more privately owned guns than most other countries, and mass shootings are, by definition, committed with guns. But we also make it a lot more difficult than any other country to involuntarily commit crazy people.

Since the deinstitutionalization movement of the 1960s, civil commitment in the United States almost always requires a finding of dangerousness — both imminent and physical — as determined by a judge. Most of the rest of the world has more reasonable standards — you might almost call them “common sense” — allowing family, friends and even acquaintances to petition for involuntarily commitment, with the final decision made by doctors.

The result of our laissez-faire approach to dangerous psychotics is visible in the swarms of homeless people on our streets, crazy people in our prison populations and the prevalence of mass shootings.
Read more here.

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