Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins
Indeed - the question of the day.
Used to be we very much relied upon the family, doctors, teachers, friends, and other close contacts to help determine if someone was "a bit off". I think that knowledge must still reside with those folks, but how do we tap it, "quantify" it, and establish "standards" for commitments and/or restrictions? Hoo boy - what a quagmire that would quickly become. This certainly ain't gonna be easy...
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It seems very hard if not impossible to prevent mentally unstable people from purchasing guns. You have to actually be adjudicated as mentally defective, or have been committed to a mental institution, or otherwise been officially determined to be dangerous. The standards vary by state. We see every couple of months examples of how this system doesn't work. I think there must be ways to improve it, but every time someone massacres scores of people, his friends and family all say they never suspected he could do such a thing, he was a quiet guy, unremarkable, etc.