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Another Uncomfortable Truth: We need the Mental Hospitals opened up again
It used to be that a citizen could petition a court to have someone committed to a mental institution, and the court could grant such committment if enough valid evidence was presented.
This changed in the 1960s and 70s.
In 1967 two Democrats and a Republican in California's state legislature came up with the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, designed to end INVOLUNTARY commitments of mentally ill, alcoholic, etc. people into large mental institutions. The LPS Act was hailed by liberals all over the country as putting an end to eeevil government practices of dictating to helpless victims where they would go and what treatments they would get whether they liked it or not. It was overwhelmingly passed by California's Assembly and Senate, and finally signed by Governor Ronald Reagan in 1967. Similar laws were quickly passed all over the country, advocated mostly by liberal groups and do-gooders.
The liberal ACLU kept pushing this agenda to get these patients out of mental institutions, and finally resulted in 1975 (coincidentally Reagans' last year as Governor) in the U.S. Supreme Court handing down a decision in O'Connor vs. Donaldson (422 US 563). This Court decision announced a new Constitutional right: The mentally ill could not be forced to stay in such institutions if they were not an actual threat to others. This opened the floodgates and let huge numbers of patients, in various degrees of helplessness, out of the institutions.
When it was discovered that these laws and court decisions had the effect of putting many people who could not, in fact, take care of themselves out on the street, the liberals did a fast 180, hastily forgot about their long, enthusiastic nationwide advocacy and support of the agenda, and invented a completely new accusation: That it was Ronald Reagan alone who had "kicked all those poor people out of their nice, safe hospitals and made them homeless".
From Wikipedia:
The Lanterman–Petris–Short (LPS) Act (Cal. Welf & Inst. Code, sec. 5000 et seq.) concerns the involuntary civil commitment to a mental health institution in the State of California. The act set the precedent for modern mental health commitment procedures in the United States. It was co-authored by California State Assemblyman Frank Lanterman (R) and California State Senators Nicholas C. Petris (D) and Alan Short (D), and signed into law in 1967 by Governor Ronald Reagan. The Act went into full effect on July 1, 1972. It cited seven articles of intent:
•To end the inappropriate, indefinite, and involuntary commitment of mentally disordered persons, people with developmental disabilities, and persons impaired by chronic alcoholism, and to eliminate legal disabilities;
•To provide prompt evaluation and treatment of persons with serious mental disorders or impaired by chronic alcoholism;
•To guarantee and protect public safety;
•To safeguard individual rights through judicial review;
•To provide individualized treatment, supervision, and placement services by a conservatorship program for gravely disabled persons;
•To encourage the full use of all existing agencies, professional personnel and public funds to accomplish these objectives and to prevent duplication of services and unnecessary expenditures;
•To protect mentally disordered persons and developmentally disabled persons from criminal acts.
The Act in effect ended all hospital commitments by the judiciary system, except in the case of criminal sentencing, e.g., convicted sexual offenders, and those who were "gravely disabled", defined as unable to obtain food, clothing, or housing [Conservatorship of Susan T., 8 Cal. 4th 1005 (1994)]. It did not, however, impede the right of voluntary commitments. It expanded the evaluative power of psychiatrists and created provisions and criteria for holds.
Before this incident what did Walmart boy do to earn being forcibly institutionalized?
His manifesto perhaps.
But beyond any one person-We have millions on our streets who pose dangers to both themselves and the general public, and the closing of these places to safely house them was irresponsible.
It used to be that a citizen could petition a court to have someone committed to a mental institution, and the court could grant such committment if enough valid evidence was presented.
This changed in the 1960s and 70s.
In 1967 two Democrats and a Republican in California's state legislature came up with the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, designed to end INVOLUNTARY commitments of mentally ill, alcoholic, etc. people into large mental institutions. The LPS Act was hailed by liberals all over the country as putting an end to eeevil government practices of dictating to helpless victims where they would go and what treatments they would get whether they liked it or not. It was overwhelmingly passed by California's Assembly and Senate, and finally signed by Governor Ronald Reagan in 1967. Similar laws were quickly passed all over the country, advocated mostly by liberal groups and do-gooders.
The liberal ACLU kept pushing this agenda to get these patients out of mental institutions, and finally resulted in 1975 (coincidentally Reagans' last year as Governor) in the U.S. Supreme Court handing down a decision in O'Connor vs. Donaldson (422 US 563). This Court decision announced a new Constitutional right: The mentally ill could not be forced to stay in such institutions if they were not an actual threat to others. This opened the floodgates and let huge numbers of patients, in various degrees of helplessness, out of the institutions.
When it was discovered that these laws and court decisions had the effect of putting many people who could not, in fact, take care of themselves out on the street, the liberals did a fast 180, hastily forgot about their long, enthusiastic nationwide advocacy and support of the agenda, and invented a completely new accusation: That it was Ronald Reagan alone who had "kicked all those poor people out of their nice, safe hospitals and made them homeless".
From Wikipedia:
The Lanterman–Petris–Short (LPS) Act (Cal. Welf & Inst. Code, sec. 5000 et seq.) concerns the involuntary civil commitment to a mental health institution in the State of California. The act set the precedent for modern mental health commitment procedures in the United States. It was co-authored by California State Assemblyman Frank Lanterman (R) and California State Senators Nicholas C. Petris (D) and Alan Short (D), and signed into law in 1967 by Governor Ronald Reagan. The Act went into full effect on July 1, 1972. It cited seven articles of intent:
•To end the inappropriate, indefinite, and involuntary commitment of mentally disordered persons, people with developmental disabilities, and persons impaired by chronic alcoholism, and to eliminate legal disabilities;
•To provide prompt evaluation and treatment of persons with serious mental disorders or impaired by chronic alcoholism;
•To guarantee and protect public safety;
•To safeguard individual rights through judicial review;
•To provide individualized treatment, supervision, and placement services by a conservatorship program for gravely disabled persons;
•To encourage the full use of all existing agencies, professional personnel and public funds to accomplish these objectives and to prevent duplication of services and unnecessary expenditures;
•To protect mentally disordered persons and developmentally disabled persons from criminal acts.
The Act in effect ended all hospital commitments by the judiciary system, except in the case of criminal sentencing, e.g., convicted sexual offenders, and those who were "gravely disabled", defined as unable to obtain food, clothing, or housing [Conservatorship of Susan T., 8 Cal. 4th 1005 (1994)]. It did not, however, impede the right of voluntary commitments. It expanded the evaluative power of psychiatrists and created provisions and criteria for holds.
What does any of this have to do with Walmart boy?
But beyond any one person-We have millions on our streets who pose dangers to both themselves and the general public, and the closing of these places to safely house them was irresponsible.
The homicide rate has dropped dramatically since this law was enacted.
Walmart boy’s manifesto was produced within a few hours of the shootings. I won’t let him win and read the damn thing so I don’t know if it was much more than a culture war rant.
The uncomfortable truth is that all of these mass shooters of the past several decades committed these acts NOT because they were truly clinically insane, or because guns were easily available, or because certain politicians or political ideology made them do it.
These people committed these acts simply because they were bored narcissist sociopaths who wanted their 15 minutes of infamy. They all follow the same pattern. Rantings and ravings on social media. Picking a public venue to commit their heinous deeds. It's no wonder some polls show that young people in this country were more interested in becoming social media stars or famous celebrities, than becoming doctors or engineers. Everyone wants to be famous, and this has never been more easy with the widespread availability of the internet and social media. This is something many of us have been pointing out for many years now.
And what better way to get that attention and notoriety these people so crave, than to commit a very public and very heinous crime that strikes fear at the hearts of society? Long after the shooting, people will still be bickering over irrelevant issues such as gun control, while the shooters deeds will live on in infamy in the record books. This is ultimately what these shooters want, doesn't matter if they claim ISIS as inspiration, don't matter if they claim christian identity politics, the outer reasons may appear different for each of these mass shootings, but the inner motives of the shooters are all the same.
Mark my words, it won't be long before another copy cat also wants his name in the media non stop, seeing his face and manifesto all over the internet and all over the world. I'm surprised there haven't been more acts, but my guess is that many of these shootings were stopped due to bad timing or some other inconvenience.
People in this society want to believe in the order of nature, that good things happen to good people, and bad things only happen to bad people, and in their delusional world, these people think there MUST be some reason a person decides to gun down 10, 20, 30 people in public besides for the publicity and infamy.
If people like the Wal Mart killer were in one, 20 innocent people would be alive.
I have not kept up with this story as much as some of you have, but what mental illness did he have?
Quote:
Originally Posted by BobNJ1960
There are people that cannot safely walk amongst civilized society.
Who gets to decide? I mean, I'm not talking about this guy anymore, but who gets to decide who cannot walk "amongst civilized society" and what objective measurements should they use?
While I agree that there needs to be more housing for the mentally ill and a lot more support, I doubt it would've stopped this guy. Don't blame mental illness. Blame the
Rise of hatre, hate being legitimised, the availability of high powered guns and even loneliness.
While I agree that there needs to be more housing for the mentally ill and a lot more support, I doubt it would've stopped this guy. Don't blame mental illness. Blame the
Rise of hatre, hate being legitimised, the availability of high powered guns and even loneliness.
My theory is that it comes from uncontrolled anger. Sometimes hate and anger are intertwined, so maybe I'm splitting hairs. But anger is usually behind these shootings. All the folks blaming mental illness for all of these shootings are taking the easy road out. Neither hate nor anger are mental illnesses.
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