Author of the article should read the Cracked article from yesterday. Batman is no longer a "nerd" franchise.

Makh: Mark Ratner: Makh: Shouldn't a mental health evaluation be an important thing in deciding if someone should own a gun?

No. Just like it shouldn't be an important thing in deciding if someone should own a knife, or drive a car.

Shouldn't a mental health evaluation be an important thing for efficient mass killing devices like pyrotechnics, dangerous biohazards and semi-automatic weapons?

I'd prefer to not have to prove my sanity to someone every time I want to exercise my 2nd amendment right. Criminal background checks are sufficient. shiat happens..crazy people happen. I don't think we need a psychiatric drive-thru evaluation on every corner to make sure some nut job can't buy something dangerous.

FTA: "Why is it always the loner?"

Because a loner has the ability to hide what he is doing and the time to plan it.

Dull Cow Eyes: I'm tired of people calling this guy mentally ill. Maybe he was just a gigantic douchey asshole who knew exactly what he was doing.


We don't want to acknowledge that people can actually be this evil on purpose, while being perfectly aware of their actions and the consequences. After a certain threshold of horror, it gets blamed on madness because no one wants to believe people could act this way deliberately.

Dull Cow Eyes: I'm tired of people calling this guy mentally ill. Maybe he was just a gigantic douchey asshole who knew exactly what he was doing.

Now that sounds farking crazy.

I'm tired of people calling this guy mentally ill. Maybe he was just a gigantic douchey asshole who knew exactly what he was doing.

Snarcoleptic_Hoosier: You know what's a good lesson to take away from this shooting? THE US DOESN'T SPEND ENOUGH ON MENTAL HEALTH EVALUATION AND CARE.

/But that's socialisms


Out of curiosity, do you think Norway spends enough on mental health evaluation and care, since they didn't catch their own mass murderer last year? After all, their government is left-leaning, and they have universal free healthcare.

Snarcoleptic_Hoosier: You know what's a good lesson to take away from this shooting? THE US DOESN'T SPEND ENOUGH ON MENTAL HEALTH EVALUATION AND CARE.

/But that's socialisms

Like stating that living in a major metropolitan city with three major sports teams, it is impossible to find someone?

CSB time

I suffer from major depression. Not the "oh shiat, he has a gun" kind, but the "ha ha ha, he's really sad" kind. I spent three hours calling forty people. Aside from taking time off from work, there were only a handful that offered afternoon or weekend hours. Of those, the soonest one had an opening was in November. (And that was a month ago when I called). Even if I could take time off from work, the earliest I could see someone was two weeks.

There's a lack of professionals. They don't have enough of them out there to warrant fighting for clients. What is it about this field of study that turns people off? Is it a safety issue? Is it not sexy enough? Do medical colleges not really offer decent programs on it? Is it the requirement that you do your residency in some truly scary places? It can't possibly be the pay. I work for a health insurance company reviewing claims. These people get PAID. Maybe not as well as other doctors, but still well above the gross median earnings of anyone else.

So, the alternative to people like me is to commit yourself, clogging up those types of hospitals, jeopardizing your career, and wasting money with the insurance company, which goes towards the root problem with premiums. Or, go untreated. Or, wait it out until its your turn in line. Which is well and good and all, if your issues are minor like mine. But if you're batcrap crazy like this dude is.... well, we've just circled the block

/csb over
//welcome to Fark

Snarcoleptic_Hoosier: You know what's a good lesson to take away from this shooting? THE US DOESN'T SPEND ENOUGH ON MENTAL HEALTH EVALUATION AND CARE.

/But that's socialisms

Take away the one and a half billion paid to the ATF, maybe add the two billion normally paid to the DEA, and I'm sure you'll find all the money you need.

/Criminals get guns outside of the system, crazies get guns through the system, the system gives guns away.
/Rather than creating more laws for that system to fark up on enforcing, the solution is to find a better use for the cash.

The National Rifle Association should contribute some of the thousands of Paranoia Dollars it raises every year to mental health treatment and research organizations.
NRA members could surely be persuaded to understand that the fewer undiagnosed untreated mentally ill people there are wandering around, the less risk there is of an unstable yet armed person wreaking havoc in society.
Perhaps said members have noticed: Every time such an event happens, folks turn around and look at them, even if it's not their "fault."

If you took away this guy's guns he would have come with pipe bombs and killed more people.

You can't prevent, prepare, or legislate for crazy.

ThisIsntMe: WTF 12 dead, move along, 12 people die lots every day. Car wrecks, overdoses,Gangbangers, Cop shootouts,heart attacks, whatever. It's not like we live in a nation of 20K. This is an insignificant blip on the birth/death rate curve of 2012 United States.

Get Some Perspective People.

Some perspective... As a purveyor of books that include ideas such as homeopathic cancer remedies and anti-vaccer diatribes, I probably have a higher body count. And I do sell a lot more quack books than serious books because it's the quack books that have higher values in the secondary markets.

/I have sold 46 copies of one book that claims that prayer is an effective cure for cancer.
//$18.99 a pop

There's a significant difference between the mental illness of Jared Loughner and this guy. Loughner's actions were more like suicidal ideation, where there was a quick idea and poor impulse control. This new guy has spent weeks coming up with this plot and actually had a get away planned. I don't think he ever would have tripped any mental health warnings because he's not insane, nor does he have self control issues as indicated by the fact he managed to get through a bachelors degree in a squishy science.

I actually expect this one to blame his professors for tampering with his brain in a psych experiment gone wrong.

/Expect to find a bottle of propranol in this guy's system