That is because idiots on the left won't discuss it without tying it to gun control. As already pointed out, the GOP has compromised on hundreds of gun control proposals without forcing the left to address mental health and drugs. With this president, we now have a chance to reverse that bass ackwards thinking. Now, the left needs to compromise and show some good faith toward a realistic solution.
And you accuse me of negativity? I'm giving you the facts, sir. If the right allows the problems to persist, the left will keep introducing gun control until the Right to keep and bear arms ceases to exist. Furthermore, under our system of jurisprudence coupled with the abject stupidity of the American people, if the Second Amendment can be legislated out of existence with a popularity vote, so can the rest of the Bill of Rights. It's already happened with the Fourth Amendment. Most gun owners fail to understand that the left intends to win. Consequently, the socialists and communists among them will only address the mental health and drug aspects IF it's tied to gun control. The left understands the more subjects you tie to a piece of legislation, the less chance it has of passage. the left does not want the dangerous among us identified. If you took the real threats off the table, the left could not get all that communist "change" they want. Everybody needs to pull their heads out of their ass. The left doesn't want to save lives. They want control.
Looked at from any other country's point of view, the notion that people get 'freedom' from carrying guns is baffling: It is something like a weird religious doctrine, and people who talk honestly about it are held to be shockingly abusive. Ah well, 'freedom of speech' in America is what justifies the very, very rich monopolising the means of propaganda, and never applies to foreigners anyway. I would ask, though, whether the American military couldn't wipe out a disorganised gang of right-wing sort-of -anarchists in very short order, or why do you spend so much on them?
There is no question about the leftist's anti-gun rights agenda having nothing to do with public safety. "Public safety" is merely the sales pitch. While superficially, it rings true, objective people who put any bit of thought or research into the facts of the matter realize the fallacy, and wont be fooled. Their anti-gun rights agenda has been a proven political loser, but they keep hammering away at changing that. In essence, the focus on MENTAL HEALTH as a means to PREVENT tragedies such as happened in Florida recently, necessarily involves the preemptive incarceration of people based upon surveillance, the public providing intelligence, and analysis of their behavior, purchasing history, prescription drug history, public interactions, etc.. The ONLY way to PREVENT anyone from access to a gun, is to incarcerate them before they get one. And the only way to do that is to make a judgement as to the potential threat level they may pose and to use that judgement as justification to strip people of their rights and liberty. Just to be clear, we're talking about incarcerating people who have, as yet, committed no crimes, just because some government agency can show that they might. This, in and of itself, represents a dangerous 4th amendment slippery slope that I'm not sure we want to go down, but that authoritarian left is salivating for.
The ACA expended mental health benefits to millions and was not in any way tied to gun control. You are just flat out wrong
I'm a big supporter of the Fourth Amendment - enough so that I parted company with the anti-immigrant lobby on their proposed solutions on immigration. So I understand the concern. I am not advocating locking anyone up - just yet. What I'm saying is that once the appropriate officials generate three complaints / warnings from the general citizenry OR someone from a qualified government entity observes an individual demonstrating known and identifiable signs of those whose behavior that is associated with anti-social / violent / overly aggressive actions, it generates an investigation to see what is going on. Let's take Nickolas Cruz. He was reported as having shot small animals for no apparent reason; he was a loner addicted to violent videos; he posts threats on social media. At what point do you need a boulder to hit you in the head and say to yourself, an intervention is necessary? IF Cruz were still in school and they had a list of this behavior AND it came to their attention that his remaining parent passed away, it is time for an intervention and to sit down and have a couple of counseling sessions with him - perhaps a drug test IF his actions or behavior warrant it. Suspicious behavior = investigation + possible counseling and MAYBE a drug / alcohol abuse IF indicators justify it. Odd behavior, being different, etc. do not qualify. People who have repeated contact with the police (they are called to a home three time within a six month period) have an issue that needs to be investigated. a child that is a loner, is known to be obsessed with violent video games, known to do drugs, and known to commit acts of violence (arguments, fights, killing small animals, etc.) deserves an intervention. Furthermore, people should NOT be required to immediately put on drugs nor should doctors prescribe them like candy. A few counseling sessions and an actual assessment ought to be required as a prerequisite AND those who are put on psychotropic drugs should be carefully supervised - even put in protective custody IF their past actions justify it. Those who inappropriately prescribe those drugs should be held accountable - like the judges and DFACS agencies that "require" it when no medical / mental health assessment dictates that it is the appropriate course of action. Incarceration is NOT the issue here. Nobody is incarcerated without Due Process under this proposal.
How in the HELL, in your mind, do expenditures prove me wrong? You can read the above post and see what the money was NOT used for. Another typical troll post from the left attacking me.
The money was used to expand mental health benefits to MILLIONS. That is a stone cold fact. The GOP voted to repeal it DOZENS of times. They do not care about mental health treatment. They do not care about these mass shootings. You no longer get to claim we should expand mental health treatment. We did that and you fought us at every turn. You care about the gun lobby.....that is it
Most of the tax money being spent on mental health is paying salaries for incompetent bureaucrats and no plan of action follows any of the spending.At the end of the day, the whole plan is to put some money on a debit card for the emotionally / mentally disabled, give 'em a prescription for psychotropic drugs and kick them to the curb. Then those beaming paragons of human virtue lie to us and falsely claim "we" don't care about mental health. Well, I don't know if I'm a part of "we" because these proposals are my own and neither side has agreed to pursue it. But wasting money on bigger salaries, more bureaucrats and drugging America isn't getting the job done. Introduce my proposals and see if the GOP agrees to fund the ideas. If they don't, I'd back off and let the liberals ban guns outright. America don't belong to the right if they are not willing to fight for it and protect it. And NOTHING is more paramount than saving those would commit a mass shooting - or other act of violence BEFORE it happens.
The right wing is against: expanded mental health treatment enforcing current laws AND gun control They are for supporting the gun lobby
My general distrust of the government is forcing me to view this post with skepticism. I agree wholly with your approach, and if we were to enact something, it would have to be similar to what you describe. I cannot rid myself, however, of the realization that every single thing like this has eventually morphed into a partisan political weapon that is used by the party of power against their opposition. The 'no fly list' gun-ban proposal comes to mind. The progressive authoritarian left worked really hard to grant themselves the power to create an arbitrary list so they could strip people's rights from them without any notice, due process, or review. They wanted that really bad. Thank goodness that they failed... but they almost didn't. The fact of the matter is, we are not a more dangerous society, overall. We are less dangerous. MUCH less dangerous. We are enjoying something like a 45% DECREASE in violent crime since the 90's. Doing NOTHING DIFFERENT appears to be working, from a purely statistical perspective. What has INCREASED is these crazy people shooting up their schools. A solution to THAT problem is not a gun control issue, its a mental health issue. The Florida shooter idolized his predecessors as heroes. He wanted the 15 minutes of fame that came with his atrocity, and the media and the left has delivered that to him. He was nuts. He told people, over and over, what he was going to do, and he ultimately did it. The people he told, relayed that information to the authorities... who did nothing. Perhaps if your solution was in place, he could have gotten help, or been locked away, and this tragedy prevented. Perhaps not. But your solution will not prevent them all. The Las Vegas shooter is a prime example. In the final analysis, this country was not founded to make people SAFE, it was founded to make people FREE. This liberty vs safety issue has been debated all the way back to the founders, and liberty always wins. Whenever you have a large population of free people, you will have occasional incidents where self destructive, crazy people will abuse their freedom to create mayhem and destruction for innocent others. And, sometimes, this destruction will be very, very violent. At the end of the day, there is little we will be able to do about it, because we value liberty over all else.
The left is full of liars that keep repeating the same talking points in order to avoid doing about the issue. They need mass killers to generate support for their totalitarian agenda - we'll keep fighting and doing NOTHING so that the left can bring about a socialist state.
Write your congress folks. The GOP is against expanding mental health benefits and against gun control. They are for expanded thoughts and prayers though
We can stop the bulk of mass shootings without gun control. Honestly, I wouldn't even support my own proposals without rehabilitating the DFACS / CPS types of services. The way they run those agencies is a total freak show. Right now, they create more problems than they solve. But, we have to do something in order to keep the left from eviscerating the Second Amendment with B.S. that only addresses an issue AFTER it happens. The left knows full well gun control won't stop mass shooters as the overwhelming majority legally purchase weapons (registration and background checks included) just prior to committing a mass shooting. So, the left demands more of the same ineffective idiocy, the final goal being to incrementally take all weapons because as long as citizens have guns, some people are going to be shot. Then the left gets all whizzed off because some of us are exposing their little game. But, I'm giving us a starting point.
The left is full of liars that keep repeating the same talking points in order to avoid doing about the issue. They need mass killers to generate support for their totalitarian agenda - we'll keep fighting and doing NOTHING so that the left can bring about a socialist state. You can try to derail this thread all you like. The gig is up and your LIES are being exposed. You're not the only swinging Richard on this board that can be repetitive.
The gop has a detailed plan of expanded thoughts and prayers. They do not want expanded mental health treatment or gun control though
So what you are saying is this, ( And I am not polarized in any way ) The left only has the power to derail gun issues such as National reciprocity, or the suppresor modification, But lacks the power to, now get this, Improve access to Mental healthcare. How does that work ? And further, expanding Mental Healthcare would actually mean opening up Education and training opportunities in Mental Healthcare, since attrition is exponentially reducing the current pool of available Psychiatrists able to treat Patients. Diagnosis and treatment of Mental Health issues is not so cut and dry as a mere fracture. It takes a huge amount of resources to treat one Patient, hence why a vast number of Patients are receiving less than adequate treatment. It is not expanded services that are needed, A complete reform of the practice of Medicine is currently needed to reduce costs without additional expenditures. So far, the most vocal advocates of Healthcare are also the least qualified.
The democrats DID expand mental health treatment to millions of americans without single gop vote. I'm sure they would like to do more but the gop will fight them at every turn
3? And the chances they would even get close to achieving that? About 0.00000001%. Political rhetoric. But it does make it like they aren't willing to negotiate, but are they needed? That is if anyone wants to negotiate, which I doubt.
This is simply a paperwork expansion and not the true reality, the affordable care act only threatened people with fines for not enrolling in a healthcare plan, this is similar to improving and increasing the number of Highway on / off ramps without improvement of the actual Highway. Also, if Patients do not seek access to Healthcare, it is a moot issue. Preventive care is needed accross the board, prevention is more cost effective than treatment post facto. It is very simple to wave the dirty Political Partisan stick, and blame a Political Party, and much harder to address true issues and propose real solutions to existing Healthcare problems.
