Mass shootings

[DrBozack]

All these mass shooters have one thing in common: they're mentally ill. They're mentally ill in a way that would have got most of them committed to institutions prior to the changes in the law in the 1980s. This is where some of them simply need to be -- they're too dangerous and unstable to have roaming around, and there are plenty of families with horror stories about living in constant fear of a mentally disturbed relative that they can't seem to get the authorities to do anything about.

In retrospect, it's easy to say that obviously [insert mass shooter here] was crazy and should be locked up. In practice, consistently identifying people like to go engage in mass violence is difficult, if not impossible.

The old joke about serial killers, that the neighbors always say, "I can't believe that he did this. He was so nice," is has some grounding in reality. For every Jared Laughner, who was obviously developing a serious mental illness, there are many more people who appear to be totally functional until one day they snap.

 

[R.W.Dale]

Look at like little nutshell

SOMEBODY is gonna get thrown under the bus on this

Would you rather it be the entire shooting community

Or

Some individuals who have a track record of not being able to always separate delusion from reality. Many of which DO need the help being proposed.


I don't know about you guys but I'd rather it not be me getting ran over.

 

[george burns]

No I said targeted schools, like the ones that have had problems before, I never said every building. You put barriers up at embassy's, not at the fruit stand.
Try that for a few of these high profile university's and se if it helps.
This is not an overnight fix. it will take time to study the results, but doing nothing but debating is just a waste.

 

[JRH6856]

Try something. If it doesn't work, try something else.

The problem with that is that it is what grew the federal government into the bloated Leviathan we have today. This was FDR's approach to the Great Depression, and he tried lots and lots of things. Some worked, most didn't, but they didn't go away. They just hung around continuing to not work and causing even more problems. Maybe we need more medical doctors in Congress. At least they have taken a professional oath to "First, do no harm" and just might understand the value of that.

The only accurate predictive screening for potential future violence consists of two questions:

1. Is this creature a living human being?

2. Is this creature potentially violent?

A "Yes" answer to either question is a Yes answer to both. Anything else is speculation.

 

[george burns]

Let's just say out of all the states, we find that there are 3 states that have 6 schools that have the greatest amount of shootings. Let's assume that with all of the geniuses we have and computers, we can at least narrow it down to something like that.
So we put an armed Guard at each strategic entrance/exit. Maybe there are 6 or 10, "I don't know", I do know that people would gladly pay a few bucks extra to make sure their kids had any measure of safety.
So now we wait 2 yrs and study the results. If suddenly we had no incidents in this hot zone, where before we averaged 1 every year at "let's just say 3 schools". We can then conclude that it helped. As time goes on you would get harder numbers, and more of an idea of where they needed to be. This would be just 1 idea of how to proceed, instead of wondering what we should do.
Now if we also found that by accessing the student body, we found 3 or 4 likely candidates that were predisposed to violence, and had a long history of instability and physical violence, we then could tag them with facial recognition system, without them even knowing of feeling violated, so that they could be kept track of while they entered campus.
No one would need to interact with them, but security could at any time monitor their actions and alert those in charge if any unusual behavior was taking place.
We do this now anyway at airports and main intersections like "Times Square".
If this save one incident from happening it would be worth it's weight in gold. And no one is being touched or harassed, actually they don't even have to be aware of the system.
This is a practical trial that would at least let us know if something like this even helps. If it does it could be used by more schools and other businesses. If not there is no harm done.
The FBI, and others, have systems like this up and running for years. Carnivore, etc
I don't see anyone's rights being interfered with by keeping an eye on possible future offenders.
Things happen and it's not a perfect scenario, but nothing is. If you want safety, you have to be aware that some way you may need to help out.
You could also put a sheet in the enrolment agreement stating that security measures are in place that monitor behavior of anyone coming on Campus, "so you told them they are being watched", anyone who didn't want to be monitored, "even though they are anyway and don't know it", could choose another school to attend.
If we are trying to stop deaths, then you have to be flexible enough to understand that any program that is going to be effective, needs the ability to track people while on school grounds. I would have no problem with that as a student.

 

[JRH6856]

Let's just say out of all the states, we find that there are 3 states that have 6 schools that have the greatest amount of shootings. Let's assume that with all of the geniuses we have and computers, we can at least narrow it down to something like that.

A whole lot of assumptions there, george. You don't need geniuses and computers. Here is a list of school shootings in the US. Go ahead and do your suggested analysis and tell us which ones are the most likely targets.

But I think you will find it easier to predict the target of the next tornado, or earthquake.

 

[Billy Shears]

In retrospect, it's easy to say that obviously [insert mass shooter here] was crazy and should be locked up. In practice, consistently identifying people like to go engage in mass violence is difficult, if not impossible.

The old joke about serial killers, that the neighbors always say, "I can't believe that he did this. He was so nice," is has some grounding in reality. For every Jared Laughner, who was obviously developing a serious mental illness, there are many more people who appear to be totally functional until one day they snap.

You're completely missing the point. The point isn't just to target future mass shooters, it's to seriously reevaluate the criteria under which all seriously mentally disturbed individuals get involuntarily committed. Right now, as the law stands, nobody can force you to get treatment for mental illness, unless a mental health professional (usually a local Community Mental Health worker) evaluates you and decides you are an immediate danger to yourself and others. Then you get committed for three days in a psych ward, during which time the docs there evaluate you and make you take your meds. After three days, if you seem better (which you probably will be, since now your anti-psychotic drugs are having an effect), and no longer seem to want to do yourself or others harm, they let you out again.

At this point, the mental patient usually goes off his meds again shortly after release, and the cycle begins again. As I said, as an LEO, I see these people almost every day. I've even had to fight some of the ones who are violent. Some of them multiple times. And as I said, even in the cases where the person is genuinely not much threat to anybody, the result is loads of mentally ill people living in squalor in halfway houses, or wandering the street, suffering all the attendant physical health problems you'd associate with that lifestyle. As a system for caring for mentally ill people, it's simply not working, and in most cases, it's as cruel to the mentally ill subjects themselves as the old system ever was.

We need to broaden the criteria under which people can be committed against their will. Perhaps not to make it as easy at it was before the 1980s, but certainly to make it easier than it is now. Someone like Seung-Hui Cho or Adam Lanza almost certainly would have been committed to an asylum in the old days. Will this stop every mass shooting? No, it won't. But it could stop many, and incidentally, be better for the great mass of non-violent mental patients who have been let down by the current system of providing essentially no care for them. Finally, by putting the focus on the mentally ill people, where it belongs, it allows us to defend the right to keep and bear arms and claim (in the eyes of the public), both the moral high ground, and a stance that doesn't make non-shooters look at us as nothing but obstructionists determined to stop people from putting an end to the violence (and yes, I know the gun control laws won't put a stop to the violence, but please bear in mind the low information voters don't necessarily see it that way).

 

[Vern Humphrey]

You're completely missing the point. The point isn't just to target future mass shooters, it's to seriously reevaluate the criteria under which all seriously mentally disturbed individuals get involuntarily committed. Right now, as the law stands, nobody can force you to get treatment for mental illness, unless a mental health professional (usually a local Community Mental Health worker) evaluates you and decides you are an immediate danger to yourself and others. Then you get committed for three days in a psych ward, during which time the docs there evaluate you and make you take your meds. After three days, if you seem better (which you probably will be, since now your anti-psychotic drugs are having an effect), and no longer seem to want to do yourself or others harm, they let you out again.

You're probably not old enough to remember when what you propose was actually the law. You should read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, or see The Titticutt Follies to understand what this would do to innocent people.

 

[Billy Shears]

You're probably not old enough to remember when what you propose was actually the law. You should read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, or see The Titticutt Follies to understand what this would do to innocent people.

So what if I am not? Even if you are, how much actual experience do you have of the places, or is your knowledge just coming from films you've seen and things you've read about? Was the institution in The Titticutt Follies any more representative of all such institutions than Abu Ghraib was of all military prisons?

I hate to break this to you, but "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," is a work of fiction. I've read it. And I've seen the movie. As for the Titticutt Follies, yes, I know the old system had abuses. That was the impetus behind the reform in the first place. I acknowledge this in my very first post. I also stated in my last post that we should not make it as easy to commit people involuntarily as it used to be, but make it easier than it is now. How is this unclear to you?

Sorry, but this is the umpteenth time I have encountered this phenomenon, and I'm getting more than a little annoyed at it: people who do not accurately state my position, no matter how plain my language is. I am NOT arguing for a complete return to the old system, and I made that quite clear, and yet your post indicates you think that's exactly what I want. STOP IT! at least have the decency to characterize my arguments correctly.

The old system was sometimes cruel to the patients. So is the current one. Leaving mentally ill people to wander the streets, not getting any care at all, as many of them don't, was a crappy solution to the problems of the old system. So the old system was broken. But the current system is just as broken, with the added problem that too many people being let down by the current system are violent and dangerous. Why are you assuming that A) there's no alternative to the current broken system other than the past broken system, and it has to be one thing or the other, or B) that I am employing that bifurcation fallacy just like you are?

 

[george burns]

Billy the problem with that is, that some liberal ACLU attorney will take it to court and have it overturned. They "the Govt" doesn't have the money to deal with the millions of people who fell off the grid. They have no place to put them and no money to take proper care. But that's a whole separate discussion. I see my moms peers "in their 90's just have no where to go unless they are destitute of wealthy. If you are someware in between you are in deep trouble without family to help.

 

[JRH6856]

They "the Govt" doesn't have the money to deal with the millions of people who fell off the grid. They have no place to put them and no money to take proper care.

That was then. Now we have Obamacare: Seizing Opportunities Under The Affordable Care Act For Transforming The Mental And Behavioral Health System

 

[Vern Humphrey]

So what if I am not? Even if you are, how much actual experience do you have of the places, or is your knowledge just coming from films you've seen and things you've read about? Was the institution in The Titticutt Follies any more representative of all such institutions than Abu Ghraib was of all military prisons?

First of all, The Titticutt Follies was actually filmed in a mental institution, and the state of Massachusetts jumped through hoops to keep it censored. Ken Kesey, who wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest worked in mental institutions and wrote from first-hand experience.

Now turn the question around -- how many mental institutions have you been in that you can assure us, based on your personal experience, that they are benign institutions?

 

[Billy Shears]

First of all, The Titticutt Follies was actually filmed in a mental institution, and the state of Massachusetts jumped through hoops to keep it censored. Ken Kesey, who wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest worked in mental institutions and wrote from first-hand experience.

Now turn the question around -- how many mental institutions have you been in that you can assure us, based on your personal experience, that they are benign institutions?

Let's see... Virginia Beach Psych, Riverside, Norfolk General Hospital's mental ward, DePaul hospital's ward, Pines Residential Treatment, Peninsula Therapy Center.

I certainly haven't found them to be worse than the street, or the halfway houses, like the one on W. Balview Ave. in our city. And do you really want people still wandering the street? Even when they're potentially violent? I work in Norfolk, VA. Check out www.pilotonline.com, the site for our local paper. We've shot and killed two of these mental patients in the last week who snapped and were brandishing knives. Do you really think that's a better situation than having them committed?

You're engaging in a classic bifurcation fallacy. The old mental institutions were subject to abuses, so they're bad and we should have those. Throw the baby out with the bathwater. Well, by that same logic, we shouldn't have prisons, or police forces, because people have been abused in prisons by sadistic guards, or victimized by corrupt/prejudiced/sadistic/bullying police officers on the street.

The problem is really no different than any situation where one group of people has authority over others. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Well, if we can reform prisons and police departments to reduce abuses, why not mental hospitals?

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Let's see... Virginia Beach Psych, Riverside, Norfolk General Hospital's mental ward, DePaul hospital's ward, Pines Residential Treatment, Peninsula Therapy Center.

My wife worked for Riverside.

I certainly haven't found them to be worse than the street, or the halfway houses, like the one on W. Balview Ave. in our city. And do you really want people still wandering the street? Even when they're potentially violent? I work in Norfolk, VA. Check out www.pilotonline.com, the site for our local paper. We've shot and killed two of these mental patients in the last week who snapped and were brandishing knives. Do you really think that's a better situation than having them committed?

Do you think your "treatment" would have helped them?

You're engaging in a classic bifurcation fallacy. The old mental institutions were subject to abuses, so they're bad and we should have those. Throw the baby out with the bathwater. Well, by that same logic, we shouldn't have prisons, or police forces, because people have been abused in prisons by sadistic guards, or victimized by corrupt/prejudiced/sadistic/bullying police officers on the street.

Now there's left-wing logic -- no need for courts or juries, just turn it all over to the bureaucrats, and everything will be fine.

Do you also advise kindergarten kids to take the lollypop when the stranger tries to get them into his car?

The problem is really no different than any situation where one group of people has authority over others. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Well, if we can reform prisons and police departments to reduce abuses, why not mental hospitals?
Billy Shears is online now Report Post

 

[Billy Shears]

Do you think your "treatment" would have helped them?

Hmmm... let's see... Thorazine/bullets; thorazine/bullets. Decisions, decisions...

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that treatment would probably be better than getting shot.

Now there's left-wing logic -- no need for courts or juries, just turn it all over to the bureaucrats, and everything will be fine.

Bureaucrats? Last time I checked psychiatrists were a bit more than just that.

Do you also advise kindergarten kids to take the lollypop when the stranger tries to get them into his car?

Do you make a habit of comparisons that are not only totally inapt, but incredibly offensive as well?

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Hmmm... let's see... Thorazine/bullets; thorazine/bullets. Decisions, decisions...

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that treatment would probably be better than getting shot.

How many innocent people are you willing to keep doped up?

And what if, after all that violation of civil rights, you don't get the RIGHT guy?

 

[Billy Shears]

How many innocent people are you willing to keep doped up?

How many mentally ill people are you willing to keep walking around society not getting any treatment, living on the streets, dying from totally preventable causes, and sometimes exploding into lethal violence?

Look, when it comes to normal, sane, healthy adults, I am as staunch a defender of freedom as anyone. But we are talking about mentally ill people here. These people don't belong out on their own any more than small children do, and for the same reason: they are not capable of taking care of themselves, or of making rational decisions about there own care.

And I see you are still intent on mischaracterizing my arguments. I am not arguing for anyone with any diagnosis of mental illness to be locked up in an institution, like you seem to think. But someone like Miriam Carey, who became convinced that Barack Obama had placed Stamford, Connecticut on lockdown, and that her home was under electronic surveillance, and who rammed her car into a White House barricade and was chased down and shot to death by capitol police? Or Aaron Alexis, who was hearing voices in his head, and who, as his friends said "always thought someone was going to hurt him," and who subsequently walked into the Washington Navy Yard and gunned down 12 people. Absolutely these people belonged in institutions.

And what if, after all that violation of civil rights, you don't get the RIGHT guy?

Same question applies to the criminal justice system. People do sometimes get wrongly convicted and lose their liberty. Well, do you propose ending the prison system because this happens? Why not?

 

[Vern Humphrey]

How many mentally ill people are you willing to keep walking around society not getting any treatment, living on the streets, dying from totally preventable causes, and sometimes exploding into lethal violence?

You obviously don't understand Herbivore's First Law of Epistemology: The fact we have a problem doesn't mean your cockamamie idea will solve it.

Your idea, aside from infringing on basic human rights, is unworkable:

1. Psychology cannot predict behavior as you seem to think it can.

2. There are over 300,000,000 people in this country -- are you going to interview and test every one of them?

 

[Billy Shears]

You obviously don't understand Herbivore's First Law of Epistemology: The fact we have a problem doesn't mean your cockamamie idea will solve it.

Yes, committing mentally ill people is cockamamie. Can't imagine why anyone would want to do such a thing.

Your idea, aside from infringing on basic human rights, is unworkable:

I guess someone forgot to tell the people who run asylums for criminally insane people that still exist that they're engaged in a useless endeavor, and they should shut down. They're violating their inmates' rights and should let them out at once.

1. Psychology cannot predict behavior as you seem to think it can.

Straw man fallacy. I never claimed that. I have claimed that people with histories of irrational behavior, like people who are hearing voices in their head and displaying paranoid behavior should be committed for their own safety and that of others.

2. There are over 300,000,000 people in this country -- are you going to interview and test every one of them?

Another straw man. Please point out to me where I ever even hinted that such a thing would be either necessary or desirable. They didn't even do that prior to the 1980s reforms, when it was easier to commit people involuntarily.

This is really too much. First you claim (inaccurately), that I want to return to exactly the same system we had before, and now you're claiming I want to go beyond that and institute mandatory psych testing of the entire population!

No wonder you think my suggestions are "cockamamie" -- your misapprehension of my arguments is precisely described by that word. I can think of another word to describe it also, but the moderators don't allow the use of such terms here.

 

[DrBozack]

You're completely missing the point. The point isn't just to target future mass shooters, it's to seriously reevaluate the criteria under which all seriously mentally disturbed individuals get involuntarily committed.

I'm really not missing the point.

Imagine the United States that you want—a country where people can have each other involuntary committed with the ease that they can currently have restraining orders issued.

And let's ignore the issue of people permanently losing their Second Amendment rights because somebody lied to the court about a threat to kill themselves.

Even if your Big Brother 2.0 state managed to permanently incarcerate 100% of the population that suffers from, say, schizophrenia and other mental illnesses that raise the likelihood of violence (are we including everybody who suffers from depression too, because that adds about about 30 million people), you will still see mass shootings. Not every mass shooter is pre-diagnosed with a severe mental issue or exhibits obvious signs that he is a serious threat to himself or others.

But you have managed to stop the obviously ill from killing, and the only cost is the freedom a few million others.

(Yes, the nation's mental health system needs to be improved, and making it easier for the seriously ill to get help is crucial, but lowering to bar to having somebody involuntarily committed can have all sorts of unintended consequences.)

 

[Billy Shears]

I'm really not missing the point.

Imagine the United States that you want—a country where people can have each other involuntary committed with the ease that they can currently have restraining orders issued.

Sigh... People will misrepresent your arguments, no matter what, it seems.

It wasn't that easy even under the old system, which I am not proposing a complete return to. You can go down and get a restraining order simply by telling a magistrate a plausible story about being in fear for your safety -- at which point (in Virginia), he will issue a paper making it a criminal offense for someone to have contact with you for just three days. You can then go to the court and possibly get that extended longer by a judge.

It was never that easy to get someone committed.

If you are going to argue against my points, at least portray them accurately.

And let's ignore the issue of people permanently losing their Second Amendment rights because somebody lied to the court about a threat to kill themselves.

That didn't happen either. Before you could be committed involuntarily in the old days, you had to be evaluated by a psychiatrist, who would make his determination primarily by evaluating you personally, not by listening to every rumor and accusation.

Even if your Big Brother 2.0 state...

Stop right there! I am talking about changing the criteria for involuntary committal to something not even as stringent as it was before 1981. So you are saying we were essentially a police state before 1981 eh?

Lay off the hyperbole. It is not helpful. It's also dishonest.

...managed to permanently incarcerate 100% of the population that suffers from, say, schizophrenia and other mental illnesses that raise the likelihood of violence (are we including everybody who suffers from depression too, because that adds about about 30 million people), you will still see mass shootings.

And once again I said that already!
Post #81

Will this stop every mass shooting? No, it won't. But it could stop many, and incidentally, be better for the great mass of non-violent mental patients who have been let down by the current system of providing essentially no care for them.

So your response it what? It won't work 100% of the time, so why bother to do anything?

Not every mass shooter is pre-diagnosed with a severe mental issue or exhibits obvious signs that he is a serious threat to himself or others.

But you have managed to stop the obviously ill from killing, and the only cost is the freedom a few million others.

Straw man and false dilemma fallacy together. I can't imagine a situation that would require every person diagnosed with schizophrenia or certain other disorders to be committed. At the risk of repeating myself, they didn't even do that in the old days, and I am not suggesting a complete return to the standards employed back then for committing people, merely a change back in that direction from the situation we have now, when (as you and Vern Humphrey are evading) there are people allowed loose now that damn well ought to be committed.

(Yes, the nation's mental health system needs to be improved, and making it easier for the seriously ill to get help is crucial, but lowering to bar to having somebody involuntarily committed can have all sorts of unintended consequences.)

Given that we had different standards back before 1981, we already know what some of those consequences are. This is not some wild shot in the dark.

 

[barnbwt]

You're also forgetting that in such a state where 'off' behavior has one carted away to looney-bin, that no one would get help for anything until it is too late for them to control themselves. The only people getting treatment will be those being committed (which is basically the scenario we had before the reforms).

Yes, committing mentally ill people is cockamamie. Can't imagine why anyone would want to do such a thing.

Your appeal to obviousness is something of a straw man, since we all know they aren't readily identifiable, and that committing someone who does not need it is an extremely serious crime against nature (same thing as convicting an innocent man). Since you are LEO, I can see the appeal of such an approach, since it would undoubtedly make your job easier, but making your job easier does not equate with justice (otherwise we have Judge Dredd combing our streets )

They're violating their inmates' rights and should let them out at once.

And this is exactly why it is so dangerous to let people be sent to them too easily. We all know the places are veritable roach motels, that people involuntarily committed often live out there days as second class citizens, assuming they ever leave the facility. Put another way; what rate of improper committals would you be comfortable with? We have to draw the line somewhere, because the system will never be perfect.

Straw man fallacy. I never claimed that. I have claimed that people with histories of irrational behavior, like people who are hearing voices in their head and displaying paranoid behavior should be committed for their own safety and that of others.

Even if it turns out they were never an actual danger to themselves or others? Because that characterizes many of the clinically mental ill. Does that scenario carry a penalty? Or does the fact they will receive treatment while committed make their loss of liberty justified? Do treatment and liberty really have anything to do with each other such that a 'trade' can even be made between them?

And what if the treatment has no effect as most often seems to be the case? Is the person's loss of liberty, for no benefit to them personally, and no benefit to society (because again, many won't ever act out violently, after all) a fair trade? At the end of the day, you are suggesting we sacrifice a class of citizens' freedom for the promise of a benefit to the rest of us, with little in the way of compensation. To me, that deal is too thin. It makes more sense to deal with people who have actually shown themselves to be violent appropriately; to ensure they cannot reoffend. The baddies are stopped for good as soon as they go bad, and no one loses any freedom otherwise; win, win.

TCB

 

[DrBozack]

Sigh... People will misrepresent your arguments, no matter what, it seems.

This is the internet, after all.

there are people allowed loose now that damn well ought to be committed.

Absolutely. And we should find a way to make that happen. It would be better for the public and for the people in question. And I wouldn't worry so much about the maltreatment of today's patients. For professional reasons, I've had the opportunity to speak to a number of long-time mental hospital security types. The consensus is that in the 80s and prior, you'd go to work every day knowing that there would be a violent altercation. The medications have improved to the point where that's no longer the case.

I am concerned about casting too wide a net, though.

In any case, this thread is about mass shootings. Getting help to the people who need it--whether bringing it to them or vice versa--is a component. But I fear that it won't have a dramatic effect on reducing mass shootings. The problem is a larger, cultural issue, and I'm not talking about violent video games, Democratic politicians, or any of the usual suspects.

 

[barnbwt]

I can't imagine a situation that would require every person diagnosed with schizophrenia or certain other disorders to be committed.

Wait, but you said people with damaged/deficient faculties couldn't be trusted to not be a danger to themselves or others; are you now saying only those who lack the ability to control themselves should be committed? Because that is very nearly what we have currently (at least, in an idealized world where the system works as well as they said it would). But even then, a guy who compulsively washes his hands but was never violent for his whole life doesn't deserve to have his freedom to associate with other citizens curtailed out of a 'risk' he might go bad and nothing else; that's dangerously close to locking up everyone for their own good (never know when that undiagnosed brain tumor or seizure could send someone off the deep end...)

there are people allowed loose now that damn well ought to be committed.

Is that a failing of the enforcement, diagnosis, or treatment arms of the system, though? Merely broadening the criteria for people brought in won't make them be processed more effectively (or thoroughly, or competently). In fact, flooding the system with a ton of new borderline cases is a recipe for high-risk patients slipping through the cracks.

TCB

 

[Billy Shears]

Wait, but you said people with damaged/deficient faculties couldn't be trusted to not be a danger to themselves or others...

That was a simplification for the sake of brevity. Mentally ill people have varying degrees of capability. Obviously there are many who are able to function in society, and there are others who can't. That's where evaluation comes in.

...are you now saying only those who lack the ability to control themselves should be committed? Because that is very nearly what we have currently (at least, in an idealized world where the system works as well as they said it would). But even then, a guy who compulsively washes his hands but was never violent for his whole life doesn't deserve to have his freedom to associate with other citizens curtailed out of a 'risk' he might go bad and nothing else; that's dangerously close to locking up everyone for their own good (never know when that undiagnosed brain tumor or seizure could send someone off the deep end...)

I don't think too many people with OCD got locked up even in the old days. Though untreated, a condition could conceivably degenerate to the point where committal was necessary. Look at Howard Hughes. Toward the end of his life, he probably should have been, but his money and the power that comes with it shielded him from that. But conditions like that are entirely treatable without committal.

Is that a failing of the enforcement, diagnosis, or treatment arms of the system, though? Merely broadening the criteria for people brought in won't make them be processed more effectively (or thoroughly, or competently). In fact, flooding the system with a ton of new borderline cases is a recipe for high-risk patients slipping through the cracks.

It's a failing of the system. I've already mentioned the case of a woman who came to our office as a victim trying to report a crime -- she had a large, festering wound on one ankle, and refused treatment. The infection will spread, and she will probably end up losing that leg, or potentially even dying. She believes her roommate is sexually assaulting her and using witchcraft to erase her memory. She also believes he has run her over with the car, while she was asleep in her bedroom. Yet she cannot be committed. She was evaluated by a CMH worker, and the criteria that they have to follow does not allow this woman to be committed involuntarily. This is a failure of the system. (This is a non-violent case, of course.)

There are violent people as well, some of whom had a history of mental health issues, and many of whose relatives have tried to get them forced into treatment, but are powerless to do so under the current system. This matters to us, because the overwhelming majority of these mass shooters have a long history of continuous behavioral health issues and mental illness. Focus on that becomes something we can be politically active on that will not only look better to the general public (we're for doing something to solve the problem, not just digging in our heels and opposing the efforts of others), and may actually help prevent at least a few of these shootings, if some of the mentally ill who represent a danger can be placed under care where they can't harm anyone else. The fact that many people who aren't violent, but are still so severely mentally ill they need to be treated, even against their will, is a bonus. Of course safeguards have to be in place to prevent abuses like the ones in The Titticutt Follies, but we also had to reform police departments to get rid of corruption and graft, take measures to end Jim Crow Laws, prosecute people in our military for the abuses at Abu Ghraib, and so on. Abuses are always possible, but that's true in any area where some people are given authority over others. That's no reason to throw the baby out with the bath water.