The Shooting: Maybe it's Not the Guns OR the hate Speech

[snot]

What if we'd had a decent healthcare system that had provided decent mental healthcare to this person at some time previously?

Clearly, he'd been identified as needing it some time ago. He was expelled from college for deranged disruptions. Reporters probe: were the college's policies adequate? Should it be harder to get guns?

The real question is, why didn't he get psychiatric help?

Now that we're on the eve of an effort to repeal the meagre healthcare reform we just got, let's consider:

Maybe there's an option OTHER than further curtailing our rights under either the First or Second Amendments. (I.e., providing decent healthcare.)

[ScreamingMeemie]

1. Why can't it be both?

Whether Jared Loughner is a rightwing nutjob, socialist far left crazy, or seriously disturbed individual of no affiliation or not, the rhetoric exists out there, through the media and hate speech, for us to be able to draw those lines.

Whether he saw Sarah Palin's map, or not... the map is there.
Whether he hates Democrats or not... the hate is there.

Because of this, I have no problem drawing that line. And I will continue to do so. If the speech wasn't out there, the Tea Party wouldn't be having to scramble around, defending themselves.

[Rex]

2. Yes if Reagan would have left healthcare alone and maybe since

then real money for progressive help toward the mentally ill, this would never have happen.

[eppur_se_muova]

7. I've been trying to remind people of Saint Ronnie's role in this ...

it was his maladministration that led to indiscriminate deinstitutionalization.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=170862&mesg_id=170862

[Catherina]

3. Rec'd with sadness. So much money for bombs but not for decent healthcare. n/t

[LisaL]

6. It wouldn't matter if we had great healthcare if he never went to see

a mental health professional. I've seen no information this individual ever attempted to get mental health treatments. When college that suspended him wanted him to have an evaluation he never came back to the college. I really wonder if there were any attempts made for him to get treatment.

[midnight]

4. Paul Wellstone was one of our few elected leaders that understood this

important issue of mental health care...

[EFerrari]

5. You're right about psych care. It's almost non-existent here.

But, this right wing poisoning of our society has to be stopped. Not necessarily by law but maybe by social pressure. You can't expect human beings to live in a sewer and not get dirty.

[GeorgeGist]

8. Perhaps vitriol should be considered a symptom of brain disease.