my sorrow to the conn school shootings

[MrPopo]

Perhaps we need to start locking up insane people and forcing treatment before they commit crimes, rather than after? That was how things were done until the '70s.

And we stopped doing that for good reason.

Forcing treatment is an interesting debate when you apply it to the general case. It's easy to construct an extreme example where most people would agree "we need to step in". For example, if someone is infected with ebola I doubt you'd find someone who would object to the government and health professionals stepping in and forcing a quarantine. But when you try to generalize it to diseases of all severity it gets much trickier. The same thing applies to mental health.

[J T]

Yes, and saying "you have ebola" is a much more certain diagnosis than "you are going to kill a school full of children." There isn't a good way to predict that people are going to murder others. You would have a ton of false positives, which is just unacceptable, especially when trying to prevent something that happens so infrequently.

We already have law enforcement step in if there is an identifiable imminent threat of violence and therapists are required to do so (see Tarasoff VS Regents of UC). But there is no way to accurately and precisely predict who will commit acts of violence before the threat is imminent.

[Luke]

Yes, and saying "you have ebola" is a much more certain diagnosis than "you are going to kill a school full of children."

Agreed.

Mental illness, from my perspective, is like almost any other disease; early detection can prevent the exacerbation of the condition.

[Michi]

Yes, and saying "you have ebola" is a much more certain diagnosis than "you are going to kill a school full of children."

Agreed.

Mental illness, from my perspective, is like almost any other disease; early detection can prevent the exacerbation of the condition.

This. The problem is, there is such a stigma, even today, surrounding mental illness. People observe it in others, often those closest to them, and either don't want to admit it, or they ignore it in hopes that it'll go away. And the people who do have the mental illness are often too sick to realize that they have a problem, and instead believe that they're fine and it's everyone else that's wrong. There's still a lot of shame associated with admitting you have a mental illness, when the real shame comes in not seeking help.

In my opinion, the real conversation we should be having now should not be about gun control (though I do think that issue needs to be discussed at length as well), but about mental illness and how we can destroy the stigma associated with it so we can better help and treat people in the future and hopefully try to prevent more tragedies like this from transpiring.

[Pulsar_t]

The media circus and public's fixation remind me of this

[Menegrothx]

http://kotaku.com/5968683/mob-blames-ma ... ngly-wrong

[Forlorn Drifter]

http://kotaku.com/5968683/mob-blames-ma ... ngly-wrong

Sickening. Nothing can be blamed on something other than the person responsible, or, as it has been suggested, those that would be responsible for one who doesn't have the ability to be responsible themselves.

That's like blaming TV for Alcoholism.

[stickem]

on piers morgan show last night they were talking about the kid playing violent video games and how it desensitizes youth on death and murder. i was like "ok, her we go, something else to blame."

i'd like to know the extent of this "mental illness". it just sounds like to me the kid was lonely, felt like an outcast, and mad at the world or something. it's like they have an illness for everything these days instead of holding people accountable.

[DinnerX]

it's like they have an illness for everything these days instead of holding people accountable.

I think it softens the blow for some people if they think "crazy" people are the only ones who can commit crimes like this. Remember Anders Behring Breivik? The court found he was sane. He killed 77 people. Terrible moral standards don't make you crazy, but they do make you dangerous.

[AppleQueso]

i'd like to know the extent of this "mental illness". it just sounds like to me the kid was lonely, felt like an outcast, and mad at the world or something. it's like they have an illness for everything these days instead of holding people accountable.

This is the problem with mental illness, far too many people seem to think it's a bunch of fake crap, bad attitudes, etc, when there's a lot genuine significant data to back it all up.

If you have depression, people expect you just to suck it up or that it's something you can just overcome with a bit of positive thinking. It's dumb. Positive thinking won't help one bit with asthma, why do people think it'll help with chemical imbalances?

it's like they have an illness for everything these days instead of holding people accountable.

I think it softens the blow for some people if they think "crazy" people are the only ones who can commit crimes like this. Remember Anders Behring Breivik? The court found he was sane. He killed 77 people. Terrible moral standards don't make you crazy, but they do make you dangerous.

JT already said it before, but 'sanity' is a legal term, not a medical one. All being declared sane by the courts means is that you're capable of understanding that what you did was wrong and can be held accountable for it.

Secondly, being declared insane by the courts doesn't mean you get to walk away free.