There's something wrong here. We have all these mentally ill people shooting up schools and murdering people....and yet they are then found "too deranged" to face trial. That's baloney. They were sane enough to do ALL the planning it takes to pull something like this off.....then they are sane enough to stand trial for what they did. This injustice needs to change. 1. "A judge today ruled that the man accused of murdering seven people in a shooting rampage at Oakland's Oikos University in April 2012 is incompetent to stand trial and suspended the legal proceedings against him. Alameda County Superior Court Judge Carrie Panetta said she based her ruling on reports by two psychiatrists who have examined 44-year-old One L. Goh." http://newark.patch.com/articles/judge-says-oikos-shooter-too-deranged-to-face-trial 2) James Loughner.....who shot Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and killed a federal judge and others........was first found to be too incompetent to stand trial and was placed in a facility for 1 year's worth of treatment. Then he comes out and another judge finds him competent to stand trial.......he stood trial.....and was found guilty and sentenced to 7 consecutive life terms in prison. Now......was he finally found competent because a federal judge and Congresswoman had been shot? Or did he miraculously "get cured" in just one year? I think these people play the system....and if they are capable of planning such a horrible act, they should stand trial for it. Why does Gabby Gifford and the federal judge's family get justice.....but others don't? Arizona, BTW.....the state she was Senator of....had not turned in the needed information to the federal data base, which WOULD have prevented him from legally purchasing those guns. And yet.....she's taking on the gun lobby, and not addressing any of the rest of this. 3) Mark Becker, Iowa, shot to death Ed Thomas, the head football coach at Aplington-Parkersburg High School in 20009. He was found incompetent to stand trial because his lawyers claimed he couldn't understand the charges against him and could not help them in his defense. Becker suffers from hallucinations, both auditory and visual, the application states. His medication makes it hard for him to track extended conversations. Aside from the schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, he also has mood swings, agitation, irritability and psychotic symptoms, the court document states. The doctor also described Becker as “labile,” which can mean that a person’s mood rapidly changes from happy to sad to angry for no apparent reason, the application says. He's been committed before and was just released a few days BEFORE he shot and killed the coach. He also has a history of "substance abuse." 4) Aurora movie shooter. His lawyers are telling the judge his "mentally ill." Police said he was "relaxed" and "eyes dilated" after the shooting. He planned for months to do what he did. Mentally illness does not cause "dilated" eyes....but drugs do. I would say he was drugged out when he did it. BUT the fact he planned it for so many months.......he's sane enough to know what he was doing. He should stand trial, be found guilty, and put to death, IMO. One can find tons of these examples. Examples where evidence of mental illness was NOT turned in to the federal data base by a state. This should be mandatory; not optiional. Examples where plenty of people in positions of authority knew....or should have known....the person was a danger to society, but did not turn them in to anyone. Like the professors and the psychologist at the school where the Aurora shooter attended.....who KNEW he was mentally ill and KNEW he was a danger....and yet did nothing. There should be consequences for the people who said and did nothing. IF you know of a pedophile.....you can be in trouble legally for NOT turning them in. SAME should be the case with these dangerous people who are seen as mentally ill and a danger to society. Then there's the question of these medications given to these young people. Some of the meds actually have had trials that show their use can cause homicidal or suicidal tendancies.....and this was only apparent in people under 24. THAT connection should be examined as well. And finally, lawyers should be barred from "getting people off" by claiming they don't understand and can't help with their defenses.....or are mentally ill. Baloney! IF they planned it; they are mentally competent enough to stand trial. And close the loophole for the waiting period at gun shows. Background checks must be done there too. Let's do what is going to actually work to prevent more of these killings.
If he is found a danger to himself or others, then he is locked up in a mental institution. But nice attempt to once again try oh so desperately to blame these school shootings on everything and anything but the lack of gun-control.
Please explain how gun control would have prevented this guy from shooting up a school. The weapons were legally purchased which he stole. Or are you suggesting the banning of all firearms?
How would gun-control have worked? His mother was able to buy a load of firearms she had absolutely no need for, didn't lock up and a few of which have absolutely no use outside of killing a bunch of people. Mysteriously gun-control works in every other civilised First World nation. So why don't you explain exactly which genetic trait prohibits Americans from introducing gun-control and working? Or explain exactly how decreasing gun-control and increasing firearms availability will stop people like the Sandy Hook shooter from easily gaining access to firearms to shoot up a school? Hmm?
I love how someone can be competent enough to go on a killing spree yet too deranged to stand trail for it.... God Bless our justice system...
Yes, if you know someone is a pedophile and you don't turn them in, you can be charged - unless you are in the Catholic Church, then you can keep it a secret. No offense but its true. That said, I think people use mental illness as an excuse to commit these crimes. They can be sane, kill dozens of people, and then suddenly they are mentally ill and not responsible for their actions. Its bull(*)(*)(*)(*). I hope that Holmes isn't able to argue that he was mentally ill at the time, because I don't believe that a mentally ill person could spend months planning something like that. It was premeditated murder, and we all know that, but somewhere out there, a lawyer doesn't give a hoot, and you better pray its not the lawyer who represents him.
im seriously tired of the "nanny" bull(*)(*)(*)(*) with these psychos. who gives a (*)(*)(*)(*) if they are psycho, it doesnt change that they are a threat to society or what they did and the peoples who's lives were taken because of it. no more "mentally ill" excuses, try them and fry the jackasses and be done with them. but yeah, they kill a cop, shoot a congressman or any other government worker and be (*)(*)(*)(*)ed if they dont stand trial. (*)(*)(*)(*)ing justice system proving we "regular" citizens are worth less. (*)(*)(*)(*) our government and our sorry ass,spineless, chicken(*)(*)(*)(*) and totally ass backwards justice system. this crap makes me sick, cus then we have to waste money "rehabilitating" these deranged freaks. waste of time and tax dollars. nothing but a laughing stock.
Do you know what a sociopath - psychopath - paranoid schizophrenia is? That's just an example of the mentally ill. There's also bipolar, borderline personality, people w/severe PPD - like Andrea Yates..... Many of these people are very intelligent, can carefully and methodically plan a crime that may take quite a while to plan it all out, but they're focused on their evil goal and often pull it off. Are they sane while they're planning their crime and committing it? No, they're not.... they are mentally ill... many like sociopaths/psychopaths don't have a conscience. They may be aware of the difference b/t right and wrong, but it doesn't matter to them..... People like Ted Bundy, the BTKiller - those were all premeditated crimes that they committed....and no, those killers were not normal, sane, rational people - they were sick, twisted psychotics, who appeared 'normal, sane and rational' even to their own family/friends..... No normal, sane,rational and conscionable person would go into a theater or school or mall or any place and shoot people just for the hell of it.... There is the mentally ill just like there is the physically ill...... Do you think Hitler was a 'normal, sane' person w/a conscience? And look at what he managed to pull off for quite a few years.....
These people can't be rehabilitated - they're to far gone and need to be locked up for the rest of their lives.... which Loughner, who shot Gifford, is.......
well if they cant be rehabilitated in any way what is the point of keeping them alive??? its stupid, they are literally worthless and not gonna be productive in anything but wasting our tax dollars.
Well, that's true...... but I think there's a law against executing a person who's mentally ill, isn't there?
Don't be too hard on your system, it's the same in every other Common Law-influenced jurisdiction. It goes back to the requirements of actus reus and especially mens rea. In short there can't be a crime unless there has been some sort of guilty intent (intent has to be construed as the "mental element" and includes specific and general intention, recklessness and negligence). If someone is so out of their head that they can't formulate the required intent (and for murder it's at a very high level) then they can't be convicted. However they can be locked away for life which seems to me to be just a different process that achieves the same outcome as a conviction for murder (allowing for the fact that the death penalty is not used in all jurisdictions).
In most civilised societies, even those that have the death penalty for murder, mentally ill people who commit such atrocities are usually locked away for life. True, most of them will never recover, they're too far gone. However executing them seems to be a bit rough.
A disordered personality is not a mental illness. A psychopath/sociopath has a personality disorder. Schizophrenia is a mental illness, and is amenable to treatment. Denied access to guns, none of them can shoot people, like the 80% of "normal" people involved in homicides do.
Our justice system now days gives more thought to the subject of a crime than they do for the victim. When they are finished with a job they make a victim look like the subject and the subject look like the victim. The only ones that are mentally ill are the ones in the justice system.
Maybe people should try to change some laws to determine what they think YOU have too much of. Money? TV? Books? Videogames? Exercise? Clothes? Comic Books? Children? And if you don't understand the difference in gun proliferation in the US compared to some other countries, you need to read up more and A LOT. And if you want to know what genetic trait is different over here, you just opened up a massive can of politically incorrect worms, since if you look at where most gun violence occurs and from whom, its one of the things the US has a lot of, that those other countries don't. Want to go there?
So it is "catch-and-release" for dangerous wackos but law-abiding people are supposed to assent to being made vulnerable to the caught and released.
No surprise here. Kid gloves treatment once again. Too deranged to stand trial...pfft....too deranged to remain a part of society IMO. Snuff him and be done with it. Things like this are why we have rising crime numbers, the lack of will to punish.
What the hell are you talking about? They didn't release him. You seem totally disconnected from reality a lot of the time.
Name me ONE gun-control action that would have prevented the last one, for instance. The guns were purchased legally by someone who passed the background check. The murdering punk busted into a "gun free" zone. How was he able to do that?? Because no one in there had a gun to stop him. He had known mental problems, was on meds, and yet his stupid mother gave him easy access to guns and even took him to gun ranges so that he could learn how to shoot. There is no legislating for stupidity. During that last automatic weapons ban......Columbine happened. His E.O. on this will make the prez fill important and tough.....but it will do absolutly nothing to remedy the problem.
I agree wholeheartedly with you about situations such as these. They were sane enough to open fire on innocent and unarmed people, so that means that they knew what they were doing before, during and after the act(s).
Seems we have forgotten "One Flew over the Cuckoo's nest" Mental health institutions are not always the easy way out
ken, you, me and everyone else knows that no amount of "gun-control" laws will stop a planned massacre of innocent unarmed people. The perpetrators know this, the politicians know this and so on. The politicians are just hoping that people are so emotionally distraught and distracted by these horrific incidences that they will give blanket support to whatever they (politicians) prescribe as a solution. We are definitely living in troubled and trying times to say the least. It is very telling when those who have been elected to protect the rights of the people, do all within their power(s) to destroy the same rights they have been sworn "to protect and defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic."
Mandated gun safety Australia did not just to a gun buy back it also mandated gun safety Prior to the gun law change we had 13 mass shootings in 18 years - since then, well it depends on your definition but biggest number - 1 in 16 years
